Craft in America

This piece is going to be the base of a bird menorah. If you wanted to make this at home, you would need some white earthenware. It's a cone 06 clay, a low fire clay. It's very forgiving so that's why it's great for beginners. Right now, I'm pinching a fairly large piece of clay. It's not huge but it's a handful for me so I'm focusing on not letting anything get too thin, just being careful to get too many cracks or too many holes but the cracks can be really cool too. So we'll just set that aside, let it set up. I'm kinda getting the shape going now so I'm thinking about the tail of the bird and the main part of the body and the head. There's different ways of doing this. I have my own way. Some people might want to like roll a coil or something. The thing about clay also when I'm drawing is like a light touch. You can always come back in and do more. We have to leave it a little bit on the thicker side because we're going to put a dowel in to make the holes for the candles. We can leave the bottom a little thick too 'cause we'll be attaching it to the base right here. Sometimes what I do just to make it flat a little bit is just tap it against my ware board. Next what I'm going to do is scratch and score it and put some slip on it and that will keep it secured on there so it doesn't break off so I've got the scratching rib and I just scratch it pretty nicely, get them a little deep. I just wet that a little bit and then I put that there, just touch it down a little bit and then you see the wet right there and you can scratch and score it right there. I've got my slip, which is clay and water and then I'll just give it a little kind of clean it off with the brush. You have to let your base stiffen up a little bit. If you put a bird on a just pinched, it'll start sagging in but if you're impatient and you can't wait and it's sagging in, it's earthenware, it'll be okay. I have a little ball of clay and I just press the dowel into it. I've got my little hub and then I'm gonna put that on the bird head. Again, scratch and score, add the slip, and you don't want to squish this in so I use the dowel and press it down and it's good. You can just check and make sure the candle, it will be a little loose but that's okay 'cause it'll shrink. I kind of lightly just make a little impression with the dowel and there's going to be eight so you can kind of figure out like where the middle would be if you want to and do the four and the four and they can go pretty close together too. It's nice that this clay actually, it's perfect today 'cause sometimes if it gets a little on the dry side, it can crack as you're pushing the dowel in. All you need to do is just go over it with your finger. It shouldn't be a problem. I think everybody will enjoy this part. It's just, it's fun. We'll test it with a candle next. I think that'll work. Sometimes just to be on the safe side, I make them a little bit deeper. I'm gonna add a little embellishment on it. I thought leaves would be really nice for it so little ball of clay, I just start rolling it in my palms so that it starts going into a leaf shape. It's very simple, pinch it a little bit. You can curve a little bit if you like and then I have my favorite wood tool, I love it and you can make really fun textures but this is for the vein so I kind of, instead of pressing it straight down and making a deep, sharp, kind of a harsh line, I kind of, I push it away a little bit, I just, kind of gently, like that, on the other side. I just clean it off right away and then just find one for the other side and stick it on there. If you're unhappy with the placement of anything like oh, I don't really like that leaf right there, right after you've worked on it, don't wait too long, you can just really gently take it off and you can take a sponge and just dip it in a really small amount, don't get it too wet, and just smooth that area off, like so and then I usually just a little bit on the leaf surface too. The part that's going to attach to the base, I keep it on the thicker side and I just kind of, I don't make it too long and this may be on the dry side so it may crack, which is nice, but if you want it to not to crack, you need to start with a wetter piece of clay so see there's a nice sized crack. You can always press it together and smooth it out and then, well I'm going to attach it to this, just going to put it right here in the front and then give it a little cleaning up. I'm going to put plastic over it now and just let it sit for a while. This will take at least a week to dry.