Dorodango 2

In the interest of staying busy but avoiding doing the things I should be doing, I made another Dorogango. This one turned out darker and a tad less glossy/glassy. It's still a trip to know that you can polish mud.

 Using the jar method to smooth and burnish the finish leaves rough spots. To get it smooth all over would mean that the ball would have to be perfectly round and smooth. The dips don't make contact with the rim of the jar and so they don't get polished. I like the contrast but the rough areas are porous, so these couldn't get wet for very long. 

 You could polish the whole thing by hand as some people do, which gives a more even finish, but it takes days, and you don't get that glassy finish that comes from compression. Compressing the outer layers is similar to glazing and firing clay. I can get the surface smoother but probably not perfect. Most of the ones I've seen are fairly similar to mine. 

 This one is still releasing moisture, which dulls the finish, and it'll probably get a bit more of a shine when it's completely dry, with another good polish. You can tell it's still releasing moisture because it's cold to the touch. Evaporation lowers the temperature of the ball quite a bit. When it's totally dry it'll be room temp.

I think these are definitely display-worthy, as long as you don't mind earth tomes. We have some marble spheres and these will fit right in. Knowing the story on them makes them a little more impressive.

 I'm going to make a couple more because I have an idea or two. Otherwise the only reason I'd keep making them is out of sheer boredom, although again they'd make nice gifts for people who appreciate such things.

 Anything handmade is fairly rare these days. Hey...maybe I could get a robot to make them for me. They could do it better than I can. Theirs would be perfectly smooth. They'd do a great job but I doubt they'd feel the same connection to the Earth as a human does when they play with mud. 

 I would love to make a few with clay and sand from the Cahaba River, if I could ever get down there again. I'd get a mortar and grind up some shells for the outer layers, which should look really nice. The finer the particles in the last dry coats you apply, the smoother the finish will be. Burnishing forces the particles together like a glaze. 

 The hardcore Dorodango guys grind the material into powder for the final coats. The final coat will be like dust. Those guys say that you can tell when it's as smooth as it can get, when dust will fall off of it. I always try to go all-out, or all-in as they say these days, so I'll try that. I'll need a mortar and pestle. 

 I was wondering how one of these would look with a coating of powdered opal, and I found some on eBay. I love opal, and I have some raw opal that's still in rocks, which I think is more beautiful than digging it out and carving it into jewelry. Adding powdered opal to the outer layer might create an interesting effect, and it wouldn't be an impossibility in Nature.

 I could cheat and add some porcelain clay to make it even smoother, but if the opal powder is fine enough it should be pretty close. Using sand for the final coats on these worked fine, so ground shells or opal should be no problem. 

 Rolling clay into balls and spending hours getting it smooth would be ridiculous to most people I guess, but they don't know how important it is to get your hands dirty every once in a while. It's hardwired in our brains, although that is changing. It's relaxing and fun to do, and it's good hand exercise. Besides the fact that Dorodangos look nice and are made from dirt, there's something really cool about them that I can't completely explain. My mom loved them and kept wanting to hold them. I've got to make a few fancy ones just to see what can be done. I'd love a Cahaba Dorodango.