In the art of pottery making, clay goes through many stages. In this video,
I'll go through the seven stages of clay with you
and the different things that you can do with your clay in each stage.
Hi, Marie here with another informative video for you. All the things that you can create with clay
are amazing. You can mold it, manipulate it, carve it, and decorate it in so many different ways.
It's endless. Because of the process of pottery making it's important to know what you can do at
which stages of clay. The supplies used in this video are listed for you in the show notes below.
So follow along as I go through each stage of clay with you.
Let's get started. The first stage of clay is dry. Dry clay comes mainly in two forms, powdered
and chunks. When you buy dry clay it comes in the powder form.
At this stage you can modify the clay easier by adding things like grog, sand,
ball clay, and even powdered colorants.
A friendly reminder, anytime you work with dry clay make sure you wear a dust mask.
Dry chunks of clay are mainly from scraps and mishaps. This is a good stage to recycle your clay
because water goes into the dry clay faster and more evenly than wet clay.
Dry clay stores great because mold needs water to grow so you don't
have to watch for mold growing on your clay or making sure that your clay stays moist.
You can break your clay in smaller pieces with a hammer before you rehydrate it.
This way the moisture goes back into the clay even faster and more evenly.
I have a video on recycling bone dry clay. I left a link for you in the show notes below.
Did you ever try making slip with wet clay it's really hard to do and time consuming?
Making slip with the powdered clay is much faster and easier. Which takes us to the next stage of
clay. The second stage of clay is slip. The slip stage is created by adding water to your clay
until it has the consistency of yogurt. There are many ways that you can use slip.
Slip is the glue that holds the clay together when you're attaching handles, hand building,
and adding other decorative pieces to your pottery. This is known as scoring and slipping.
Slip is great to decorate with. You can add colors to your slip with mason stains
which comes in pink and green and blue just to name a few. There are applicator bottles that
you can get also like this one with different size tips that can make cool designs on your pottery.
Having batches of slip comes in handy, so it's ready when you are.
It's a good idea to store your slip in an air tight plastic bag, because the mold also needs
oxygen to live, the sealed baggie prevents the mold from growing. This slips over four months old
and no moldy smell. I have a video on making colored slip and I also have a
video on making plain slip I left the links for you in the show notes below.
The third stage of clay is plastic or workable. This is a fun stage to be in. This is where the
clay hits the wheel or the slab roller. At this stage your clay is malleable or flexible and
you're able to throw it on the wheel, hand build, and make attachments like handles.
At this stage the clay shouldn't crack. If it does you need to add water.
You can even apply slip to your pottery at this stage.
Cool your imagination is the limit.
The fourth stage of clay is leather hard. The leather hard stage is when the clay
is no longer tacky and the ability to move the clay around is gone.
It's stiff enough so you'll be able to handle it without marking it up or misshaping your creation.
Drying to leather hard can take anywhere from a few hours to a day depending on how much moisture
is in your clay and the climate you live in. It's called leather hard because some say it
feels like soft leather. This is the stage where you attach your handles and other attachments
and they also have to be leather hard. You can carve into your clay with a dotting tool.
You can do scrafito or inlay, also known as Mishima.
And use a ribbon tool also.
You can make holes in your clay at this stage too.
Drawing or transferring pictures or patterns is another
way you can decorate on your leather hard clay.
Trimming is cool to do especially after you get the hang of it.
There's something about the leather hard clay flowing off your pottery like a ribbon.
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This is a good stage to apply slip for decorating also.
If you have any questions or comments feel free to leave them in the comment section below.
When it comes to decorating on leather hard clay your imagination is the limit.
The fifth stage of clay is bone dry clay. The bone dry stage is when the moisture is out of the clay
and it's dry enough to bisque fire. This process can take at least a week even longer depending on
the climate you live in. If you're in a very humid climate you have to exercise patience.
Bone dry is the most fragile stage of clay. You can still handle the clay but your pottery can
easily crack or break. All is not lost. You can recycle it. You can still decorate at
this stage. You can apply under glaze to the bone dry clay and still be able to apply slip.
I applied this slip to my bone dry clay and it turned out pretty good.
When placing your bone dry clay in the kiln you can have your pottery pieces touching each other
unless you have applied underglaze or colored slip to your pottery. If the
underglaze or colored slip pieces touches the other pottery the color will transfer
onto the other pottery. Which takes us to the sixth stage of clay.
The sixth stage is bisqueware the bisqueware stage is when the clay is fired in the kiln
usually between cone 06 and 04 which is 1828 degrees fahrenheit or 998 degrees celsius
and 1945 degrees fahrenheit or 1063 degrees celsius this process removes any chemically bonded
water and impurities from your clay. This causes your clay to change permanently into ceramic
making it much harder and easier to work with and porous so the glaze can absorb nicely into your
pottery. There are several ways of glazing at this stage. You can apply underglaze.
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any time a new video comes out. These little guys were under glazed in the bisqueware stage.
You can also apply transfers to your bisqueware.
When applying your glazes you can dip it, spray it, on brush it on, or any other way you can think
of. That's the fun part of glazing. Your options and color selection seem endless. The seventh and
final stage of clay is glaze firing. This stage is where the magic happens. The glazes melt and bond
with the clay as the pores of the clay close and vitrify creating beautiful colors and patterns.
Like this.
Waiting to see the results of the glazes you've applied is exciting.
You can fire at a low or medium rate or
(speed). The rate is how fast or slow your kiln will reach its peak temperature,
then shut down and cool on its own or the kiln can assist in a slower cool down.
Low fire glazes have firing temperatures between cone 04 which is 1945 degrees fahrenheit
or 1063 degrees celsius, and cone 06 which is 1828 degrees fahrenheit or 998 degrees celsius.
Mid-fire glazes are mainly fired to cone 5 which is 2167 degrees fahrenheit
or 1186 degrees celsius, or to cone 6 which is 2232 degrees fahrenheit or 1222 degrees celsius.
High fire glazes for the most part are fired to cone 10
around 2345 degrees fahrenheit or 1285 degrees celsius.
You'll see the results of your work in about 24 to 36 hours depending on the temperature you fire to,
the size of your kiln, and the rate per hour, and the cool down time. Now it's time to unload the
kiln and behold the beauty of your creations. I hope I've helped you in understanding each
stage more and some of the cool things you can do at the different stages of clay.
I build my list of videos to create based on feedback from viewers like you.
You watching helps me to make more videos, like this one.
Now head on over to my how to make colored clay video,
or this how to choose clay video. If you do I get to play with more clay. Let's stay dirty.