On my last forest trip, I found some red clay! I've been watching pottery videos for the last month and I was so ready to stumble on some natural clay by accident. I actually have no idea what was it doing so high up in the hills, but I decided not to dwell on it, and filled a bag with it instead.
You can test clay found in nature by rolling it between your hands, and making a long noodle out of it. If it doesn't fall apart, then the clay is viable! This clay passed the test easily, it was very bendy and flexible, but it was still filled with little tiny rocks and pieces of sand. So when I got home, I put it thru the cleaning process.
To get clean clay, you have to melt it in the water first. This works on the principle that clay melts in water completely, but sand and rock do not. So after you get your muddy, clay water, you just strain it thru a strainer, and it keeps all the rocks and sand out. The clay gets thru the strainer, melted into water. The last part of the process is to just wait until the clay settles on the bottom, and the top part of water is clear, then you just slowly pour the water out, until it dries up into a good, clean clay (it takes a few days or a week). It makes quite a mess when you do this! I had to do it in the bathroom, for the lack of backyard in the apartment.
That's clay in the forest, clay melted, and in the end, clay strained. it's such a pretty color! And feels good on the fingers.
If you wanna learn more about finding and cleaning natural clay, here's some videos:
make clay from dirt
primitive pottery: firing clay with a pit fire
I haven’t figured out how I’ll fire it yet, but I wanna work on my molding technique first! I’m gonna make so much stuff!
