I received the most lovely birthday gift! My two older boys (the best husband and our older son) made absolutely wonderful pottery from home-made clay. And because I was so touched and amazed and surprised that one can actually do something like that, I asked the craftsmen exactly how they made it.
We live in an area where the soil is very rich of clay. When we go to the forest, there are small creeks that run through a bed of what looks like almost pure clay. So, my boys set out to collect exactly this type of soil. At home they dissolved it in water to be able to separate the clay from all the other components like sand and twigs and stones etc. They let the sand set and drained the clay solution several times. Now it was time to get rid of the excess water, which turned out to be not so easy. The first obvious step was to run the solution through a filter made from fabrics. Then they used diapers (!) to get rid of the remaining excess water. I don’t need to tell you what I thought when I happened to find some of the mud filled diapers hiding in my son’s bedroom….. Apparently one of the most important steps is the kneading of the now somewhat dried clay to achieve a smooth and homogeneous constancy. Otherwise the clay will teer or break very easily.
And thats what they made out of it! They dried the pottery on low temperature in the oven until they where thoroughly dry and then painted the pieces. Lovely, isn’t it?
This is my contrition to Creadienstag.
tamtamtiger 