April 24th thru May 1st we are holding the workshop that we call Artistry with Clay and Lime. Our website – www.caneloproject.com has a full description, but in short, what we cover during the workshop is a variety of plasters including clay, clay/lime and lime. These range from thick base coats that can be used on uneven and irregular surfaces to very thin, highly polished finishes. All can be applied to just about any type of wall surface, really doesn’t matter. One thing we emphasize is improving participants ability to use plastering tools. We have made great strides in recent years having learned a great deal from Japanese clay craftsmen.

In addition, we cover sculpting plasters and one of the course highlights is learning from Athena to create carved plaster designs. For more examples of these, look to older posts of this blog while we were in Europe. We also cover different uses for straw/clay blocks, clay furniture, earthen floors and homemade paints. It’s a fun workshop, the kind of thing that can dramatically expand creativity and options. I’ll leave it at for now, more info is on our website.

Below are a few samples of plasters we’ll cover during the workshop.

Our straw/clay base coat plaster, or if you happen to be in Japan, the “arakabe” coat that is used on bamboo lath walls.

Polished blue lime plaster that is finished with olive oil. This is a new technique that we learned from Japanese plaster craftsman Noda-san this last December.

Carved lime plaster done by our son Benito.