-TIPS-
-It's always important to wet your clay every now and then to prevent it from hardening too much.
-Hollowing ceramic pieces is important & must be an even thickness at 1/2 of an inch.
- Making a venting hole in all sculptures is important as well.
-Having short nails makes it easy working with clay, I however, hate having my fingernails short so I often nick & scratch my pieces resulting me into constantly smoothing them out, trying to get rid of the marks.
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Shape clay into something like this, basic cetacean shape, like a thick tube(noodle).
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Shape it more for detailing.
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Add dorsal.
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Cut in half & hollow out.
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Shape out the fluke & pec flippers from the clay that was hollowed out.
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Attach fluke to the end of the caudal peduncle(Tail).
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Make holes for the pectoral flippers.
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Make a venting hole (e.g. blowhole).
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Score/slip hole & pecs, then attach pecs to body.
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add clay around pecs & inside body for extra reinforcement.
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Lay on foam or anything that wont disturb the pec fins while it hardens a little.
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Score/ slip both body halves.
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Position the two together so that they can stick to each other.
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Add clay to reinforce the two together.
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Smooth out.
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Paint using "slip"
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Make sure you put 3 coats so that it's opaque with no brush streaks.
Here he is after the first firing!
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Clean sculpture with a damp sponge before glazing.
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Glaze (I used a transparent glaze)
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Clean glaze off the area where the body meets stand at least 1/2 (so he can detach).
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Make sure the glaze doesn't cover the vent hole.
And here he is after the second firing!
