Making a Clay Lotus

My lotus flower with the petals supported by tissues

 

Earlier this week I had a chance to get crafty and learn how to make a lotus flower out of clay.

Leo Wong is a clay sculptor and his day job as a landscape architect so he has a lot of time to observe flowers in nature.

Wong showing us how to make petals

He taught a few of us how to make a lotus flower in a few steps (and with his help)! And he explained the difference between lotus and water lily is that the entire lotus flower is edible, while the latter is not.

First Wong told us to roll some clay into a ball, and then press it down with the palm of our hand and then roll it out until it was a few millimetres thick. 

Then using a leaf-shaped cookie cutter we cut the shape out of the clay and then placed it in a silicon mold that instantly created some lines on the petals.

The pointy end is the top of the lotus petal and we curled that part together and then made the petal more round, as those closer to the middle are more rounded than those at the outer edge.

We added "glue" or wet clay on the lily pad-shaped clay and placed each of the petals on it, slightly apart from each other. 

When that was done, it was time to do the next layer, the smaller petals placed in between the first layer. 

To finish it off, Wong put a yellow clay-shaped middle of the lotus flower in our lotus flower and added little hairs around it as decoration. He made them by pushing clay through a sieve.

The first layer of petals glued onto the lily pad

Wong explained our lotus flowers needed about a week to completely dry, after which point the clay would be thinner and then it would be glazed then fired.

Lots of fun and can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done in time for Mid-Autumn Festival!