Easy Pottery

How to make drape bowls

Step 1: Materials

What you need:

• Clay
• Bowl
• Scraper Tool
• Fern or any other item you would like to imprint on the clay
• Rolling pin
• Cutting tool

Step 2: Smooth the Clay

Use the scraper tool to smooth out the sheet of clay. Start from the top and go all the way down to prevent any strange marks. Do this to both sides and if you have any air bubbles, use the excess clay from smoothing out the rough texture, to put it inside the clay. Then smooth out the bumpy surface. Now your clay is ready to be used!

Step 3: Cut Out the Clay

Get a tool with a sharp edge, can be a form of a knife or a pointy needle-looking item, and cut along the edge of the clay. Do not press into the clay with the bowl; it will form an indentation which is not wanted. You can cut right where the bowl lies or a 1/4-1/8 an inch away from it. Don't be too worried about having a bumpy cut, that can be fixed later on.

Step 4:

After this, smooth out the clay if you need to, and place the item that you would like an imprint of, on the clay surface, and press in with your fingers and nails. Sometimes it helps to have a rolling pin to get an even imprint.

Step 5: Draping the Bowl

Unfortunately, I will be jumping around in the examples, but this should provide a typical view of what to expect! So, after you've placed the indentation, gently lift the clay from the surface it is on, and place it inside the bowl. Then push the bowl on the sides, into the middle. DO NOT push the middle of the clay inside the bowl with your fingers! You only want to use the sides to sink the clay in. The fern example is shown in the last picture.

Step 6: Finished Examples

After we smoothed out the edges of the bowls, fired them twice, and glazed them, this is how they looked! All of the bowls we made are going to Empty Bowls which benefits the local hot meal program. Support your local Empty Bowls program by making some bowls!