[crafts] Crafting a medallion

So I am still working on my secret project, experimenting with a few ideas as I ensure that I could actually pull of the bits and pieces that I need to complete the project. Today I attempted to sculpt a medallion - for no other purpose than to see if I could do it.

First, I swiped some clay (not sure what brand or anything) from my daughter's art area. I am looking at a few different kinds of clay that I can buy because I would need more, much more for the project. I drew up some random designs on paper as a example before I cut into the clay. Below is what I came up with.

 The reverse side:

I baked this in my convection oven for about 20 minutes, it was dry but still bendable at the end of the twenty minutes. Kinda weird, it looks like stone but bends a little like rubber. Strange....and perfect!

Next I grabbed some paint - literally whatever I had in the garage - and started playing around. I want this to be strange, sort of familiar but not exactly right. I grabbed an orange, blue, and bright red spray paint and took turns with each color, wiping some off here, dabbing it there. Then I filled the crevasses with black paint and then dry brushed the black off the top surface in a sort of haphazard pattern. The result is below, the one side turned out mostly brown with lots of pits and scratches.

 The other side ended up more red and strangely like bloody flesh in color. Really weird.

I wanted to see what a 'final product' might look like, so using the paper I made last weekend I wrote a quick letter and then a piece of scratch paper with drawings, notes, etc.

I am not 100% happy with it, but it is close to what I wanted. For a first attempt it turned out pretty well. This is entirely far too easy and so much more simple than I expected it would be. Fun lies ahead of me!