More American Clay Plaster

Me, in front of the East Wall of the Office/Music Zone

Today, we mixed up some more Enjarre plaster and got working on finish walls again, after three months off. I'm feeling pretty inspired about plaster right now because I just attended a American Clay application workshop on Saturday with Rick Kantor of Terrasanti in Penngrove, CA at Alternative Building Center in Eureka. I had a whole lot of fun playing and experimenting with plaster with a group of great people, and learned a heck of a lot, too.

This is our third application of Enjarre plaster, which is American Clay's more commercially-minded plaster. It's designed to be a one-coat application, and is intended, generally, to be applied with spray equipment and then back-troweled. That is, until they released a new product called Up & EZ, which enables you to literally roll the plaster on with a paint roller. (Link shows a video demonstration of the roll-on technique). Or you can trowel it on like usual, too.

The last few times we used Enjarre, we were having some difficulty getting it to stick on the roller, and applying it seemed more challenging than American Clay's workhorse plaster, Loma. One thing I learned this weekend was that we weren't mixing it wet enough. I made the mix a lot wetter today, and had much better results. Drew rolled the material on, and I troweled it smooth. Ella got in on the fun too, playing with a small trowel we usually use for compressing our clay once it's dry.

I had some captions in the photos in the original slideshow, which wouldn't show up in the movie. Essentially, they said things like "So easy, a four-year-old can do it", and "So easy, a pregnant lady can do it". The color of the plaster is called "Palomino Valley". What you see here is the wet color, it will be softer when dry.