Catching up!!! Clay Workshop

Sorry for my temporary absence! I have been SOOOO crazy busy this year.  I have SO many things to post, so I am going to begin today and try to post every day this week!!! How do you like the new blog look? I'm not married to it yet, think it still needs some tweaking.

I will start with our super awesome clay session we had this weekend!
First we made a coiled vase attempting to purposely make it as unsymmetrical as possible...here is how you do it!!
First you cut your base (any shape) and put the first coil directly on top. use a flat round tool or even a Popsicle stick to smooth the coil on using gentle downward strokes at an angle on the inside and outside.

The next coil you will offset it a tiny bit on one side, and smooth again

Each time you place a coil on, overlap it a bit and cut so when you connect them, you are connecting two even sides flush

you can see in the picture below how that left side hangs over a bit

Each time you add a coil, you make the edge that hangs over a bit more to the left 

and the next one a bit more to the left

and the next one a bit more to the left...eventually you can add half coils to throw it off horizontally and also change the direction of your twist!

and so on and on, so eventualy your vessel will begin to have a twisty shape! Like its moving! It is SO cool!!

You can see the twisted shape mine began to have after a while

Eventually you can achieve effects like these beautiful pieces by the incredibly talented Sally Doyle!

 The next thing we did was using the Extruder. If you have never used one, think of a giant playdough factory noodle maker!! We made some beautiful things with tubes. First a cross. We started with some two inch tubes from the extruder. They had sat out for about 24 hours before we started, so they wouldn't be too soft.

We started by very gently twisting them in several random directions

 We cut a hole in the side and placed the side pieces inside

then reinforce with coils to make the seams strong in the middle of the cross

then smooth them out

Flip the cross and smooth the back

then we accentuated the twist curves and added holes for the "wounds of Christ" 

 you can make so many things from the extruder...some people made candle holders and other things

Here is my finished cross...it looks like a dead piece of wood. Any ideas on how I should paint/glaze it

stay tuned for more posts to come tomorrow!!