Transcript
Speaker: Do this if you can't afford to buy glazes. Real quick before we get started, did you know that the questions that we asked are gonna determine what our pottery is gonna look like and it's gonna determine what our voice is gonna look like? That's why I created 15 questions that you can use right now to start discovering your own unique voice. Go to shapingyourpottery .com forward slash questions to get this free booklet.
Speaker: If you love pottery and want to take your skills to the next level, you're in the right place. Find your own pottery style right here on Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Let's get started. What is up, Shaping Nation? This is Nick Torres. And on this episode of Shaping Your Pottery, I'm going to be talking about what you can do instead of buying glazes to start adding some color to your pottery. So for the longest time,
Speaker: I had this idea in my head that I wanted to make a comic book scene almost with my pottery and I started sculpting these characters and because I started sculpting the characters I figured that I was just going to use underglaze to paint it. But the only problem with that is
Speaker: One, underglaze is really expensive. Two, the poses I'm doing are gonna be really, really hard to paint underglaze on. So I had the idea, and I've noticed a lot of other people have done this as well. Instead of using underglazes or actual glaze, what I did instead was I made colored clay, colored slip.
Speaker: and this has helped me so so much and this is so such a better solution especially if you can't afford to buy glazes like myself so this is what you can do instead of buying glazes under glazes instead of buying the the under glaze and glazes
Speaker: buy mason stain instead but why should you buy mason stain the reason why you want to buy mason stain is because you can change the color of your clay into any color you want as long as you have the right colors for it not only that it's also cheaper than buying the glazes and other glazes and you can also get a larger quantity as well
Speaker: So here's what you are going to do to make these colored clays and colored slip. First, you want to get some mason stains. So you can probably look it up online, or you can maybe go to your local pottery shop. They might have it there, check there first, so you don't have to pay for shipping. But get some mason stains. Whatever color you want, just get some mason stains.
Speaker: The next step is you're gonna get a bunch of clay and put into a bucket, wet the clay, and you're gonna stir it up until it's like a nice whipped cream feel to it. It has to be very, very smooth to it. You don't want any bumps.
Speaker: or you wanna minimize the bumps at least as much as you can. Try to make it as smooth as you can, you know, get a whisk and whisk it around. It may be a little bit, your arms might get a little sore if you're not using like a machine to do it, but it's worth it, I promise you. After you have done that and you've got to slip on nice and smooth and it's ready to go, what you're gonna do now
Speaker: is you're gonna put the slip into some small buckets. You can use some cool whip buckets, you know, after you've eaten them, you can use any like container, whatever it is, just put it into some small buckets and you're gonna divide it up depending on how many stains you have. So, you know, if you have one stain, all you really need is one bucket, one small bucket, one medium bucket. If you have multiple stains, then divide it up into however many stains you have by buckets.
Speaker: So now you're going to divide that slip into a bucket. And now you're going to add the stain to the slip. And then once you add the stain to slip, you're going to mix it again. And that's how you're going to get the color to your pottery. It's such an easy thing that you can do. Anybody can do it. You can get a large quantity of colored clay, colored slip. And there's so many benefits to it. So if you want to use, let's say,
Speaker: If you don't want to have colored clay, but you want to add the coloredness to the pottery, you could use the slip to paint as a glaze, as an underglaze. Or you could do the opposite as well if you want to maybe make some marbled pottery. You can add the different colored clays into there, and you're going to get a really cool marbled pottery design. There's so many benefits to making colored slip.
Speaker: And not only that, it's recyclable. So if you mess up, you mess up, you could just restart. It is such a good benefit to this.
Speaker: Make sure before I hop off here, make sure that you are in a well -ventilated area. So maybe do it outside when you're doing this or when you're at least pouring the stain onto the slit and make sure it's in a well -ventilated area because it is technically harmful to you know our lungs. Same with glazes as well but just
Speaker: Just make sure it's in a well -ventilated area. I like to do mine outside and you can do that as well. And then once you have it all slipped up and the slip is changed into a different color, you have two options here. So one is to just leave it as slip and then just to paint the slip onto your pottery. And then two is to turn it into an actual ball of clay.
Speaker: and you do that, just pour the slip onto a plaster table or wherever you like to dry out your clay and do that. So that is all you have to do. I hope this brought you some value and go out there and start making some colored pottery colored slip. You won't regret it, I promise you. It's way cheaper than buying glazes or underglazes. Go out there and buy some stains and get working. I'll see you guys next time.
