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Three years ago in my garage studio, I tried to make a tiny glass cactus for a friend and ended up with a green blob that looked exactly like a pickle.

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3 Comments
anna_henderson
Honestly, that's a pretty funny fail. Did you ever try to make the cactus again, or did you just accept that your art was meant to be pickles? I feel like I'd have to keep trying until I got it right, but then I'd probably just end up with a whole jar of green blobs.
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alexc93
alexc9324d ago
You're right about ending up with a jar of green blobs, that's exactly what happens. My advice is to stop trying to make the cactus and just make pickles on purpose. Use a different tool, like the flat end of a brush handle, to poke holes for spines after you shape it. It saves you from overworking the clay and turning it into a mushy mess. I wasted so much material trying to force it into being a cactus before I figured that out.
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gavin_hill27
That flat brush handle trick from @alexc93 is genius. My problem was always the spines. I'd try to roll a hundred tiny clay needles and they'd either break or sink into the body. After three lumpy attempts, I switched to just scoring lines with a toothpick, but then it looked like a weird melon. Did you find a spine method that actually holds the shape without wrecking the whole piece?
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