La Doll Paper Clay Review

La Doll Paper Clay            

                La Doll clay is made by Padico and distributed by Activa, and can be found online at activaproducts.com.  I recommend you check out my angel sculpture to see what kind of sculpture I do to compare to how I talk about this product.

                My first attempt with La Doll was to make a figurine of a walking cowgirl with her raincoat blown behind her. This is the same thing I did with the Amaco Craft Porcelain and you can read my other review of that. It sculpts easier, for me anyway, than the Amaco clay. The La Doll smoothes out beautifully, no lumps and the finish is smooth. When you add a piece of clay, it blends well. The consistency is firmer than the Amaco clay. It reminded me of soft serve ice cream with maybe just a touch of ice in it. This is because of the fibers from the paper. They are very small but I could feel them, or feel them tearing apart, when running a tool through it.

                I could not get the La Doll into as thin of pieces as I could with the Amaco. When spreading it thin, it ripped apart. I could still get fairly thin pieces.  The La Doll did not dry as hard as the Amaco, but the Amaco looked plastic when dried, and the La Doll doesn’t. I have to talk about color here because it affects the look.

                I used the same technique to add color. I used non-toxic markers. I flattened out a piece and scribbled all over it and worked it in. The La Doll absorbed a lot of color. The Amaco dried brighter than when wet and the La Doll dried not as bright as when wet. The yellow for the raincoat simply disappeared with this technique. Over and over I added color with the yellow marker, the lump stayed white. I dug up my water color paint for my air brush and poured that in, twice. Finally I had yellow. I couldn’t keep the yellow off my fingers. This brought me to my “I hate this stuff, I quit.” frustration level. Then I thought about it, and the sculpture dried.

                La Doll looks good when dry. The color came out more subdued, almost pastel.  Tiny detail is possible. Even my finger prints showed up.  I decided with the remaining small lump of clay to do a small bust, and leave out color. I am happy. I liked the way it sculpted. I liked the way it dried. There were no cracks, though it was a solid piece, I did not use an armature. There was no distortion when it dried, as might happen with a solid piece. However, on the colored piece that I quit on, a crack did form. This was because I was sculpting with different colored clay and trying to keep them separate so the colors didn’t intermix. The flesh colored tummy drew away from the blue colored pants. I blame myself more than the clay, I should have blended it some by smearing some flesh colored clay under the blue colored clay.  Without using color, the white reminds me of pure white marble. This white/marble color appeals to me much more than the plastic look of the Amaco.

                                 This sculpture is nothing great, I know, it was just an experiment.

                When La Doll is dry it can be sanded, or moistened and added to. I carved on the bust a little to see what would happen. Even I didn’t ruin it. (I am not a carver.) The scratchy marks I made to hollow a cheek and make the cheek bone more pronounced, were brushed away with a wet brush. The little bust was only 3 ½ inches high and took several days to dry. It is stone hard though. I sculpted some hair falling over her face like Veronica Lake, or if you’re young and know Jessica Rabbit, like that. I left some of her hair hanging away from the body to see how strong that would dry. It took awhile to dry but it doesn’t move anymore.

                This La Doll clay was easy to keep clean, and I have a cat, and I’m a guy; this means I may go work on my car and then go back to sculpting. You do need to keep things clean. Even when it’s dry, be careful. I picked up the bust after I came home from work to see how it was drying and the dirt came off my hands and on to the sculpture. Luckily it was dry enough that it brushed off, but beware when handling this stuff even when dry. Since it is water based and picks up dirt even when dry, it needs to be sealed. I haven’t done this yet but I hear that matte acrylic works best. If you want it to be shiny use gloss. Something most people don’t think of is UV protection in their finish. I just went to look for my can of acrylic spray but I must be out. If I remember right acrylic is a good UV protection. It’s not that the sculpture needs UV protection, it might yellow in the sun, I haven’t had time to test that, but the finish itself can turn yellow in the sun if not made with UV protection. Even lights in your house can turn it yellow over time, not as quickly as the sun, but it will darken the finish. Don’t just spray any ol’ clear finish you can find on your sculpture, check for UV protection, it should say on the can. Another good finish is shellac, though it might be too shiny for some tastes.