Make your own Lancashire Landscape Clay Relief/CollageWith Marjan Wouda

A relief is a picture that is a little bit 3D!

Materials: clay, dough, salt dough or other clay substitute

Tools:a rolling pin; a piece of cloth such as tea towel or dishcloth; a piece of card from a cardboard box (handy for rolling sausages), a lollypop-stick or other cutting tool; textures to put patterns on the clay such as different kinds of cloth (such as knitted), netting, corrugated card or textured wallpaper; a little water in a cup; a small brush or your finger

Step 1Roll out your clay onto the cloth as big and as thin as possible. Keep peeling it off the cloth and turning it just as if you are rolling out pastry. Aim to make it as thin as a pancake. If it gets sticky, roll it from the centre slowly outwards.

Step 2Cut a rectangular shape out of the clay, approximately 6“ or 15 cm wide

Put this to one side.

Step 3Take the off-cuts and roll them into even thinner, random shapes.

Step 4Put patterns onto these clay shapes by putting a piece of cloth or netting on top of it and rolling over this to imprint the clay. Gently peel the imprinted clay away' Step 5Now you can start creating your landscape collage by sticking pieces of textured clay onto your rectangular piece. Try them out first; then stick them onto the background with a little water on the back. Ask yourself: “What is the furthest away point in my picture? Is it a distant hill, a horizon or a far away cloud?” Start putting down that distant hill or cloud.

Relief with cloud and background hill

Step 6Add more layers of clay, overlapping the lowest edge as you go, and gradually coming closer to the foreground and further down in your landscape.

Foreground to add last along the bottom of your image

Step 7Now you can add details: a tiny tree (if it is far away) or a bigger one (in the foreground), made from wormy sausages; a cottage, barn or a stone wall; a Boggart, Dobbie, Skriker, hare, talking cat or any other un-earthly creature you can think off. You can make them run, walk or jump! Stick these details down flat onto the landscape with a drop of water.

Enjoy!

You can post your finished piece on the King of the Cats Blog: http://thekingofthecats.wordpress.com/gallery-worksheets/©Marjan Wouda Sculpture 2014