To Squeeze or Roll.....

That is the question... It depends on whether you want smooth, masonry rocks or crude, natural ones.

When you go to put the Model Air on the wall, you can either roll it with a rolling pin or squeeze it like you see me doing in the photo.  For rougher rocks, I prefer this method.  I am trying for the rocks that they found in the area, with little or no smoothing. 

I squeeze it and manipulate it until it is less than an eighth of an inch thick.  It doesn't have to be an even thickness.  I put it on in patches, working about four square inches at a time.  The clay and glue both dry out very fast....Especially in high temperatures. 

Here you see the sloppy glue job that I am doing...It doesn't have to be neat in this case.  It just has to stick the clay to the surface of the wall.

The piece that you see in this photo was pushed and smoothed towards the top of the wall.

As I went, if there were any holes, I just put a small clay patch in the area.

After it was covered all the way to the top, I used my stencil brush and textured it.  I used the flat to get the granite look and the edge to put the veins in the clay.

You can clearly see at the bottom, the difference of the dried clay and the clay that I am working with.  I made sure that the new overlapped the old, so that the surface would be covered completely. 

Then I went back in and used my credit card tool to delineate the cracks and crevices between the stones.  Sometimes I go all the way down to the wall and other times I don't.  I like the variations.

At the top of the crenelated wall, you can see a new piece of clay.  Notice that I make sure that the new and the old are connected at the corners. 

I also make sure that the lines go all the way around the corner, so that it will look like there is a whole stone at the corner.  That is not necessary on the inside corner, but on the outside corners, it is a must!

The inspector is here... I will have to get her to sign off on the work I have done so far...  I know that Spike approves.  I am just not sure about Tessie... I heard her say... "Casey had better not leave the wooden floor on this.  It needs rocks too..."

I never get an even break with her.  I don't even have the wall behind her rocked yet and she is whining about the floor. I think that she is ticked off because I am not following her sketch.  I went with continuous stone, rather than the white parapets that she drew. Too bad...

I guess that I should go work on it some more.  This could be one of those things that takes a while.  I hope that you don't get bored in the middle.

I have to go rock and roll now.

See you tomorrow.