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 Posted: Sun May 25, 2008 10:44 pm
Bal did not like clay. He had never liked clay, and he resolved that afternoon that he never would. It was just glorified mud, except mud was all right because he could stomp in it and make a mess of himself. He couldn't stomp in clay, or if he could it wouldn't be very satisfying. It just sat there, and to make it do anything he had to push and push and push, and by the time it had changed he didn't care anymore.
And yet here he was, in a room full of children, tables, and clay. Laura had told him that when he finished they would make it hard and paint it, and then he could put it up on his window to look at. Bal did not like this idea, mostly because he didn't want to look at it. He had wanted to make a horse, but had wound up with something that looked frustratingly like a melting elephant. It was wrong, and he hated it. His legs itched with repressed energy, and he wanted to run, but he couldn't, not here.
He settled for looking at his table partner's creation. It was better, maybe because she was older, or a girl. "How do that?" he asked, frowning and feeling a little cheated. If clay was going to be difficult, it should at least be universal about it.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 8:23 am
Cecelia looked across the table at the little tanned boy, and smiled. “It’s not too hard.” She said, allowing him a closer look at her little clay kitty cat. “But you have to be really careful with the clay or it’ll mush. Do you want me to show you?”
She got up and moved around the table to sit by the other child. “Okay, what are you making? An elephant?”
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 12:57 pm
Bal shook his head. "S'a horsie," he said, scowling down his creation. "Fat legs," he added venomously, gesturing toward the horse's stumpy underregions. This was far from the only problem with it: the tail was thick and meaty and looked like nothing so much as a fifth leg, his attempts to create a mane had only made the horse look as if it had a huge, bald head, and his increasingly aggressive handling had left the creature misshapen and lumpy. Only stubbornness kept him from declaring it a deformed elephant and going home.
He looked up at her despairingly. "How fix it?"
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 1:31 pm
Cece examined the poor creature very carefully. It would be easier to make the misshapen lump into an elephant, and call it done, but if he wanted a horse she’d do the best she could to help him.
“Okay. . .” She said slowly. “The legs are gonna have to be a little fat so he’ll stand up, okay?” She took one of the leg-like things off the pile and began rolling it out. “I’ll show you the first one and you can do the others.” She carefully showed him how to roll the clay out so that it was a squat tube. “What’s you name?” She asked as she worked.
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Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 4:05 pm
"Okay," he said agreeably, and watched carefully as she rolled and shaped the clay. It seemed easier when she did it; when he had tried to roll it it had only crushed between his palms or stretched out into a long, spindly rod that was more like a snake than a leg.
"Bal," he answered, not taking his eyes off her hands. When she had finished and he was sure he would not miss any secret trick, he looked up at her. "Tank you," he said solemnly, the picture of seriousness except for his tail, which swished merrily behind the stool. He liked the leg she had made. It wasn't as thin as the horse's legs he had seen on tv, but it wasn't fat either. It was just a solid sort of leg, which was right for a horse made of thick, heavy clay.
He plucked another stumpy leg off of his horse and rolled it experimentally between his fingers, trying to imitate her actions. It didn't change right away, so he pushed harder, trying to get it to straighten out, but it didn't work. The clay gave way and smushed between his hands. He gave it a dark look and rubbed harder, but only succeeded in squeezing it thinner.
"Didn' work," he said unhappily, after stubbornly rolling it a few more times in the hopes that he could bully it back into the right shape.
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 7:48 pm
Cecelia smiled; she liked the little boy immensely. “You’ve got to be gentle with it.” She told him. “If you press too hard it’ll mush up.” To demonstrate she pulled another lump of the slowly dying elephant and showed him how to press down firmly, but not so hard that the clay would mash.
“See? You’ve got to go slow, and don’t rush; you have all the time in the world.”
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Posted: Tue May 27, 2008 9:12 pm
Bal nodded and listened carefully, determined to get it right this time. Go slow, don't rush, be gentle. He repeated it over and over in his head like a mantra as she showed him and as he balled up his ruined leg in order to try again.
"Go slow, don' rush," he repeated quietly to himself, his brow furrowed in concentration. He rolled it between his hands, and yet again it didn't do anything - it wasn't like crayons, with crayons the color showed up right away - but he ignored the urge to push harder. Go slow, don't rush, be gentle. After a few moments the clay began to smooth and lengthen between his hands, perfect and round, not smashed or too thin in the center. He gave a cry of delight and held it up, his serious demeanor disappearing.
"I did it!" he told her, his face splitting in a wide grin. "See?" It was perfect, just like hers.
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Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 9:17 am
“You did it!” Cece cheered with him. “It looks perfect!” She smiled and clapped her hands, excited for the smaller child.
“Now, once we get all the legs done, the body is really easy.” She nodded to the lump that had been his first attempt. “Just take the biggest chunk out of there and make a short, but really big and fat shape like the legs, okay?”
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Posted: Fri May 30, 2008 9:33 pm
Bal smiled at her approval and set the leg on the table next to hers, his tail twisting with a self-satisfied happiness. "Okay," he said, and carefully made the fourth and final leg. It wasn't so hard now. Go slow, don't rush, be gentle. He finished and put it down, and a little thrill of triumph ran through him at the sight of all four together.
Now it was time for the body, which sounded like by far the most satisfying part of the thing. He tore the largest part of his older sculpture off - which was, depressingly, the head - and set about shaping it, the pink tip of his tongue sticking out a bit as he concentrated. The lump of clay was a little too big for his hands, and he nearly dropped it once or twice, but on the whole it was easier to make and harder to crush than the legs had been, and soon he had an acceptably potato-shaped body, rife with little fingerprints and imperfections.
"Izzit right?" he asked earnestly, presenting his creation for inspection with a kind of wary pride. It looked right, at least mostly; but then there were lots of little wrongs with it, and maybe there were too many.
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 10:29 pm
“Looks right to me.” Cecelia beamed at him. “The little things won’t matter, especially after you paint it. And if you can see any no one will care because You made it.” She paused for a moment to examine what was left of the original lump of clay. “Okay. The next parts are gonna be tricky. You’ve got to make a small banana shape for the neck, and a peanut for the head.” She pointed to the lump. “Think you can handle that? I think you can!”
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Posted: Sat Nov 15, 2008 11:26 pm
This did not make a whole lot of sense to Bal, who felt that if it was wrong it was wrong, regardless of who had made it. It made him feel better that she had said so, though, and she was older, so maybe she knew better.
"Peanut, 'naner," he repeated, nodding. Those were trickier. He knew bananas pretty well, from the big painted bowl of fruit Laura kept on the table. They were yellow and bruisy and shaped like a skinny moon, and he could see them in his head when he tried. Peanuts were harder. Laura would not allow him to have real peanuts, on account of his being too small, but there was a big cartoon peanut on the label of his peanut butter, which he hoped was not too different from a real peanut.
He tore off two chunks of clay and set about pulling and rolling them between his fingers. The neck was easy, although he was not completely satisfied with it when he finished. It was banana-shaped, sort of, but it was too skinny for a horse's neck, almost too skinny for a banana. He folded it double and smoothed it out, then blew his bangs out of his face with a kind of resolve and decided it was done.
The head was harder, but he got lucky and it turned out right by accident. He jammed his thumb into its center unartfully, hoping it would turn out peanut-shaped but having no real idea how to do it, and by chance it was smushed into exactly what he wanted. He did not want to brag, but he felt himself blush with pride. It was perfect, exactly like a horse's head and exactly like a peanut.
"M'all done," he said, looking up with a shy smile. There was still the mane and the tail and probably ears to do, but she had said the neck and head were the hardest parts, and he liked his very much.
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Posted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 8:05 pm
"That's great Bal." Cece told him, grinning insanely. "You got the hard parts, now stick them to the horse-y body then make some triangles for ears, and some skinny long pieces."
She showed him how by pulling off a very small piece of the clay and rolling it into a long, thin, strand.
"See? Like this!"
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Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 1:35 pm
Bal nodded thoughtfully, and then pinched off two tiny bits of clay, which seemed about right for the ears of a tiny horse, and molded them into two little triangles. He stuck them on either side of the peanut -- one was slightly bent, which bothered him, but that was okay -- and then put the peanut on the banana and the banana on the big lump, and that he jammed on the four fat legs. It was extremely satisfying.
The strands -- were those hair, maybe? -- were trickier, because his hands were not big enough to cover much space and so the middle got rolled while the ends didn't, which left it skinny in the center and huge and droopy on the ends. He tore off the ends, which were wrong and which he did not care for, and then rolled them into more skinny strands of clay, until he had seven lined up on the table.
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