The finish
Rustic is the most open of the three Clayworks classic finishes, and the one that reads most obviously as hand-made. It is an unfired natural clay plaster from Clayworks in Cornwall, holder of the King's Award for Enterprise 2023, supplied and installed across Dubai and the wider UAE by Earth Layers — Clayworks' sole authorised distributor and approved applicator in the Middle East. Like the rest of the range it is breathable, it buffers humidity, and it has nothing to off-gas.
Rustic is laid on by hand and finished loose. The coarser aggregate in the mix is left standing proud rather than pressed flat, and the trowel is allowed to skip and lift, so the finished wall keeps the record of how it was made. It goes onto interior walls and ceilings over primed plasterboard, render or blockwork.
Light is what the finish is for. A raking daylight or a grazing wash from a cove throws real shadow into the surface, and the wall shifts through the day instead of sitting flat. Colour runs through the body of the plaster rather than over the top of it, so knocks and scuffs read as wear rather than damage, and the surface ages in the tone it started in.
The difficulty is restraint. Worked too much, a Rustic wall collapses into something merely uneven; worked too little, it reads as unfinished. The real test is holding the same degree of looseness from one end of a long elevation to the other, which is why our artisans are on our own payroll rather than subcontracted — the hand that starts a wall in Dubai finishes it.
Built examples show both registers. The Makers Barn in the English countryside carries Rustic across a full rural interior, where the relief does the work that joinery usually has to. Desert Rock Resort uses Rustic Nude NUD-02 against stone, where the texture of the plaster answers the texture of the rock rather than competing with it.
Where it belongsSamples
Swatches are made by hand, so no two are identical. Colour on a screen is a starting point — we make trial panels on your substrate before anything is agreed.
Textures on this base
Every texture below is worked into the same plaster while it is still green, by hand, on site. Colour and texture are chosen separately, so any of these can be made in any colour in the range. See all of them on custom finishes.
Documents
Data sheets and supporting documents, each issued under our own cover. Free to download, no form.
Questions we hear
Can Rustic be used in a bathroom?
Not in the wet zone. Clay plaster is for interior walls and ceilings and should never take direct water, so showers and splash zones go to tadelakt or lime. Rustic is fine on the dry walls and ceiling of the same room, where its humidity buffering is an asset.
How does it perform in the UAE climate?
Interior clay plaster sits in conditioned space, and that is where it works best — it takes up moisture when a room is humid and releases it when the air dries, helping hold a room between 40 and 60% RH. It contributes to WELL, LEED and Mostadam submissions. For external walls we specify the dedicated exterior clay plaster system instead.
How is the level of texture agreed?
By sample, not by description. We make control samples in the specified colour on the actual substrate, agree the degree of relief with the design team, and keep that approved sample on site as the benchmark for the whole job.
Can a Rustic wall be repaired later?
Yes. Colour sits through the body of the plaster, so a repair is re-worked in the same material rather than patched and painted over. Repairs are easier to lose in Rustic than in the smoother finishes, because the eye is already reading texture.
Featured project
Built with this material, by our own artisans. Open the project for the full set of photographs and the story of the installation.
The rest of the range
Sample it, then specify it
We will make as many trial panels as it takes to arrive at the surface you want, on the substrate you are building on. Send the finishes schedule, or come to the showroom in Riyadh and put a hand on the range.