Clayground the-Ceramic Painting Studio

I’ve made a number of pieces at the clayground and I find it a fun way to kill some time. People should be aware that it takes a LONG time to complete a piece so it takes a bit of commitment. If you’re like me and like to try new techniques all the time you might just end up going back several times over to complete the items particularly when you have to make sure it’s all dry before continuing on. The good news is at clayground it’s free to come back another day (not so at competitors)
I find the staff very helpful — there are lots of examples of things to try from mixing soap in with the paints and browing bubbles and having them pop on the surface of your item to create a cool pattern. I also painted string into the paint one time and then covered it in black. When you slowly remove the string after it’s all dry you see the color under the black in cool patterns. For new techniques, clayground seems to be the best teachers of the 3 calgary places i’ve been. The downside is I find the bisque to be on the expensive side.

Never take a guy on a date to Clayground unless you’re one of those couples who have been together for years and don’t have anything to talk about. I made that mistake thinking that it would be a lot of fun. Well, it turned into two exhausting and equally frustrating «dates.»
Tip #1: If you’re doing this for the first time, pick something ridiculously small to start off with. You’re going to have to paint at least three coats before you can fire them in the kiln. It will take FOREVER if you decide to paint an 8″ gnome.
Tip #2: Get Tim Hortons from across the parking lot before coming here. You’re going to get hungry.
Tip #3: Book an appointment. Especially on a Friday night because it gets crowded.
Tip #4: Listen to the rules carefully otherwise the ladies who run the place will not be impressed with you.
They have a wide variety of ceramics to choose from. It can get expensive though. A large mug (probably 16oz) is $ 44. Our gnomes were $ 49. A standard sized mug is $ 24. Small figurines like owls or cats are $ 15 – 30. You get the picture. If you’re an adult looking for a fun adult night, I would recommend booking a private party weeks in advance and bringing alcohol to get you through the night. Otherwise, it can get pretty exhausting… unless that’s what you’re into.

Okay, so I buy these 3 groupons for this joint. WOW what a gong show to get in, so I walk in and was rudly told I had to have an appointment, well life got the best of me and I forgot about these stupid groupons. So I called and made an appointment, I was also told that even though the groupon says I will get what I paid for if I use it after it expired the rude woman on the phone told me that was not gonna happen it expires and is no good after the date. WHATEVER, so I go in for my appointment with 2 people in tow because I cannot use all 3 of them at one ON ME… since when? Anyways, we get there for 1pm and the rude woman had penciled me in an hour earlier, really was pissed off at this point, so they turned us away, but because I ad the groupons we were… get this… allowed to pick out our pieces! WOW, okay so we go in for our FIRST EVER appointment to pain, they are over booked and seat us at the birthday party table, thats fine, but we were told that they would have to move us somewhere because a birthday was coming in and they needed that table. HOW THE HELL IS THAT MY PROBLEM???
Anyways, no help on how to get started after saying many times over that we had never done this before.
Well whatever, one piece turned out nice, lets hope for the best on the other 2.
If you want to try this joint go ahead and try it, but if you want my opinion, find somehwere else, these people have no care in the world for you or what you are doing there and there pieces are really really expensive.
Oh I forgot there is a young girl there, if you ask her for help she will help you, no one else cares.