hello! i'm just beginning to learn ceramics and i wanted to ask if it's okay to try making some fellows inspired by yours!
it's literally fine! i don't know where you live and can't stop you! @ me when you have finished pieces if you wish
Tip: for the big ones, let the basic two-pinchpot egg shape stiffen up a bit before adding accoutrements. and if you draw desired silhouettes beforehand and plan out necessary supports/drying times, your shapes will be a lot more crisp and sprightly than if you work with wet floppy clay throughout. don't ~let the clay do what feels right~. it wants to fall over and you need to outwit it
hi! apologies if you've been asked this before, but do you have any advice for first time online store owners? i'm thinking about opening one to sell sculptures of my own but i've got no idea where to start, and was wondering if you had any tips to share.
anyways, i love your charming little clay fellows and i hope you have an excellent new year 🤎
i may have been asked it but i can always answer again! tagging this with "clay ask" so you can review past answers
tips:
it's fine to start small and go slow and not optimize everything right away. sculptures are a luxury good and they will usually not immediately start flying off the shelves.
that said: it's nice to track what time you're spending on what. just block it out on google calendar after you're done so you can tot it up at a later time. this tip is super hypocritical but i've done it in the past
i use and like big cartel for my storefront. it doesn't have the fees of etsy or the will sell your stuff twice if people buy it really fast of storenvy. it also doesn't have the discoverability of either, so you'll have to try harder on other social media, but it's a worthwhile tradeoff for me. i don't know anything about shopify and i won't learn
i like pirate ship for shipping labels; it talks directly to big cartel (and a lot of other storefronts!), gets good rates, lets you preview hypothetical packages to check shipping costs, and lets you save package presets. i have a shipping label printer but you should be fine with a regular printer + packing tape.
try to make some reliable size classes of sculpture so you can use a few package settings and not recalculate shipping every time
i try not to buy shipping material from uline because they love trump soooooo soo much. if you have anything local, that's generally a smart call for last minute supply runs, especially because shipping on boxes is spendy. i like upaknship.com for jazzy bubble mailers. i haven't researched their politics but at least they aren't uline
do not put anything particularly delicate in a bubble mailer. i assume you can guess this but a friend once mailed me a plant pot in like. a plastic bag with some shredded paper. so i don't trust what people know about distribution of force in packaging.
you want pressure to be pretty evenly distributed. you don't want anything to be able to twist or bend or snap or rub against itself. you want your packed mailers and boxes to not make any noise when you shake them or to "clunk!" when you drop them on a table from a foot or two up. if you're worried about dropping them that far you have not packed them right.
people will often give you packaging materials if you say you're collecting them
it's nice to have a tape gun... i inherited mine from a childhood neighbor who was a wonderful lesbian
take very careful notes on expenses and income. expect about 25% of $ that comes in to go to taxes (i'm in CA, this might vary)
I signed up for a pottery class recently (in part inspired by seeing your works). Do you have any tips for beginners, like what sort of knowledge to pick up or techniques that are good to focus on?
oh i am sooooo so bad at wheelthrowing. i will give you some tips anyway, due to my hubris
quantity is really key in ceramics. mistakes can be recycled, successes might crack or have something fall onto them in the kiln. do not get paralyzingly perfectionist. keep going
build good habits with cleaning your tools and workspace!
see what you're most curious about. i like unstable glazes, so i explore what different combinations look like, how they flow over different textures and planes, how to use them without them flowing out of control. maybe you'll be curious about painting on underglaze designs, or about creating things that feel interesting to hold.
clay behaves really differently depending on how wet it is, so see if your place has a heat gun, or just come by frequently to see how it's drying out. this is most important if you're making a complex form that needs to support its own weight, but also relevant to carving.
drawing the silhouette you want before making it, or doing other 2D brainstorming, helps you make better things, vs ~~feeling what the clay wants to be~~ (it's wet. it wants to fall over)
my sculpture website is here, my sculpture mailing list is here, i've tagged some of my fun DIY tags below, and i can otherwise be contacted by leaving a message in a jar in an old stump
What kind of wire do you use in the sculptures that have the kiln safe wire in them? I’ve been wanting to experiment more with mixed media type ceramic sculptures and kiln safe wire would open up a ton of possibilities for me
I either literally googled kiln safe wire or went to my local ceramic supply store and rootled around there, the label of that sucker is long gone! My learned experience tip is don't use very thin wire even if it calls itself kiln safe because it will still break if you jiggle it. Godspeed
Do you have any advice for someone just starting out in working in clay? I sometimes find myself at a loss of what to make outside of a class setting with prompts and also unsure of what to do to keep building my skills. Thanks!
okidoke so this is two questions. for the skillbuilding chunk:
- figure out how clay behaves at different moisture levels and how that can be used and how to wrap it and wait to achieve desired moisture level. very important for, e.g, legs that can support a body. scaffolding with junk clay is also useful here! also, learning your own work rhythms so you can time all this comfortably. this took me a WHILE and it's key for larger or more complex stuff!
- try working from drawings; i find this encourages me to pursue more striking silhouettes than ~just making what i feel with the clay in my hands~. also helps you remember your plan if a piece needs to dry between assembly steps. you can start with drawing studies of other people's clay work, if you like.
sometimes at a loss without prompts:
- what are you curious about? chase that down! for example, I'm curious about glaze combinations and how they flow on texture, using the hollow spaces inside a larger sculpture, cantilevering, and what i can make my friends as gifts. feel free to steal any of these.
