Edited to add:
Shruti asked me to share my clay recipe and here it is:
The recipe said
1. tear paper into strips and soak overnight
2. Grind it into a pulp using a blender
3. Add glue and knead into dough
4. Make whatever you want
and you could add some colours while grinding if you want some interesting combination and patterns...
But what I found while trying to make this:
1. Soaking for couple of days makes it softer to grind and the lower the quality of paper the better - eg TOI is better than Hindu in this context :D
2. Blender doesn't do a great job - the paper gets lumpy and clog up. I had to mash it a bit with hands and then use the blender - better still, the grinder. Also, you need some water for it to grind. I tried using some soaked methi and it works because it adds a bit of sliminess which helps the blending
3. Since I couldn't avoid water while grinding, I squeezed the water out before adding glue
4. My glue:pulp ratio was something like 1:3. I used fevicol.
5. Then I made all of these... I used some bowls for the form - I should remember to use Shruti's tips next time. And for some of the bowls I applied a very thin layer of pulp which became thinner when it dried. The thicker ones are more sturdy.
6. And for the lady, I made a skeleton with an iron wire - I wanted to make one who would be able to stand on her two feet but my pulp collapsed.
7. My sheep, mushrooms, fish, tortoise and Ganesha were nice and fat when I made them but they shriveled up on drying and the sheep got a sprain in the neck as he also couldn't stand on his fours and hence had to make him lie down. I think my pulp/ clay wasn't thick enough.
Then after drying and after the struggle to separate the bowls from the form, I used acrylic, undiluted to paint them all. The insides of the bowls were easier to pain since the surface was smoother...
On the whole - 2 days to soak paper, 4 hours to grind and make all the stuff, 2 days for drying (3 days of struggle to get them apart) 2 hours to paint them all and 1 night for paint to dry.
Here goes...
All but one of the bowls were made from paper mache clay...
Art on a Platter - Group Photo
A Gopika and a tribal woman - same piece painted differently on either side. Two shallow bowls, Fish - again the same fish painted differently on either side, two withered mushrooms, a sheep with a sprain in the neck and a Tortoise...
See some flowers that the tribal woman is picking?? A Ganesha who hasn't had his quota of kozhukattais and the bowls ...
The bowls up close - kitschy, drippy, sprinkly and all...
A peek into the making...
Phew!!!
