making the animals
step 1: mold animal shapes!
First, I start with a small blob of clay. I mush it around to make it look like an animal. Here we are looking at how I made the capybara and cat. Tails or any other extras get molded separately and attached at the end.
step 2: painting the animals!
Now time to paint them! I paint them using undergalzes in the greenware stage, meaning before the clay is fired at all. I use a very tiny paintbrush and a bobby pin for small details!
step 3: fire them in the kiln!
After the clay and underglazes are completely dry, they are ready for their bisque fire, or first firing. This is what it looked like right before it's firing, and it looked basically the same after. No broken tails or ears! Yay!
step 4: coat them in glaze and fire again!
Almost done! After the bisque fire, I brush on clear glaze. The glaze looks off white now, but when it's fired in the kiln it turns clear! I brush 2-3 coats on, and then wipe the bottoms off so they don't stick to the kiln.
step 5: all done!
Here is the capybara and cat after it's taken out of the glaze kiln! This guy came out unscathed, but a lot of mistakes can happen during the last firing. Sometimes the glaze will bubble, crack off, or get stuck to the kiln shelf or other pieces! They made it out okay though.
