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Here is a fun hand building project you can make whether you are a beginner or a pro and even children and friends can do it.
Find a bottle to use and because you are making it out of clay yourself, it will include the one of a kind marks and no two will be alike.
You can texture it, put designs on it or glaze it with funky colors.
Are you ready, here we go!!
Wrap newspaper around your bottle and tape it on well.Wrap a second piece of newspaper over the first and tape it so it stays on.
Do not connect the two layers of newspaper.
The inside layer of newspaper is going to stick to the clay, so if you want to take it apart before the clay shrinks and crushes, you need the first layer to slide off of the second layer.
Are you lost yet?
Ok, now roll out big sheets of clay.The easiest way to do this is with a rolling pin.
Get two yardsticks and put one on each side of the clay, then pat and roll the clay down until the edges of the rolling pin hit the sticks on the ends.
This will give you a uniform thickness of clay 1/4 inch thick.
Make sure you roll the clay out on canvas, cloth or paper or it will stick to your table or floor.
Now, pretend you are just doing a water glass.
Cut a rectangle that is about the same height of the glass and wide enough to go around the glass.
Start with the glass at one corner of the slab and roll it around until the other side covers it and makes an overlap.
Cut a slice down the middle of the overlap and peel the leftover pieces away, the ends should match up securely.
Brush on some vinegar and push the edges together, smoothing them over.
If your clay stretchs a little, you can just beat it back into shape with a paddle or a stick of wood.
Since you have a bottle and not a glass, there are a couple things you can do for the neck.
You could make your slab tall enough for the whole bottle, then as you come up the neck, begin cutting pieces out of the clay so that it would taper into the neck.
When you get a good fit, you can then smooth out the cuts, and then make small coils or strips of clay and wind them around the rest of the bottle.
OR
You can leave them as is or smear them together untill they look smooth like a bottle.But, if you use coils and leave them as is and brush vinegar between the layers and it will stay together much better.
OR
You can do the whole neck or the whole bottle for that matter with random shapes and sizes of clay in sort of a patchwork quilt.If you do this, your clay should be very soft and your pieces should overlap so the overall bottle will be bumpy not smooth.
Pretty Neat Huh?
Now, while the clay sets up, it's decorating time.
You can make textures by rubbing combs across the clay, hitting it lightly with a meat mallet, by pressing scrunched aluminum foil over it, press a piece of old jewelry into clay for designs all over, drawing with your fingers or pencil, using a carving tool or a piece of silverware.
It is only limited by your imagination.
Once you start texturing every tool in the house will disappear from it's proper place!
The very tip of your bottle is another chance to be creative.
You can roll a coil around the edge of your top.
Maybe you want a jagged edge, like a broken beer bottle.
After letting it set up some, but don't let it get too dry or it will start to crack as it shrinks, but not so wet that will flop, pull the bottle out from the bottom.
See, this is why you don't want to tape the second layer of paper to the first or you wouldn't be able to pull the bottle out.
Now, you need a bottom, so roll out some clay, sit your bottle on it, trace out a bottom, and put it on with slip or vinegar.
If your pieces are not all the same wetness when you applied them, once it is stiff you should spray the whole thing with water or cover with wet newspaper and put it in plastic for a day or two.
This will allow the moisture to equalize throughout the piece so some parts won't fall off.
Now, let your bottle dry for a long long time.
Let it dry completely, which is until it is not cool when you touch it to your face.
It can take days of summer weather in Arizona, weeks of winter weather in Seattle.
Now, you can bisque fire your bottle, once it is cool, brush on three coats of the glaze color of your choice and fire again to the suggested Cone number for the glaze.
Well, when you opened the kiln, did you have a masterpiece?
These bottles make good holders for bouquets of flowers.
You can decorate them fancy or funky, whatever you like.
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