Before I started writing this final post, I sent a picture of my finished incense burner to my friend that I have been keeping updated through my learning project. We talked about how we both have tried so many different hobbies but never really stuck with them. Both of us have hobby graveyards in our closets. Mine is filled with knitting/crocheting stuff, painting supplies, those gem painting kits, and so many other things that I was once excited to use that have now lost their original flare. I don’t know if it is because I had to stick with it for this project, or just because I really enjoyed myself throughout the process,(probably a bit of both)  but I think I’m going to stick with air dry clay!

Through this learning project I have learned many skills related to clay art, but many new skills related to technology as well. I can now say I am confident in finding online learning resources that are actually useful, and I now feel very comfortable editing videos, pictures, etc. (which will definitely come in handy in the future!) I loved keeping up with everyone else’s learning projects, it was great motivation to keep going on mine and everyone had so many great resources to share!

I have looked through my learning project posts and I feel that I can see the growth that I have made learning this skill. Before starting this project I had never worked with sort of clay (other than playdough) before, and I feel confident that the next project I make I won’t need a tutorial to complete it!

Here are some of my personal favourite highlights from my learning project:

Starting My “Pottery” Experience

Checklist of Skills/Techniques:

• basic shaping techniques
• proper kneading and handling
• joining pieces together
• smoothing
• adding details and texture
• proper drying/sealing

These are the skills that I set out to learn in my first post. I have covered all of them and feel quite confident in my abilities. I even added colouring the clay to my list! (I still need to perfect this)

I Made an Earring Tray! Second Learning Project Post

This was my first actual project, I chose this slide to highlight just to share a visual starting point to see how my skills have progressed. Looking back, I don’t think I started too shabby but I can definitely see my improvement!

Having an Egg-cellent Time With my Learning Project (3rd Post)

When I finished, I left the magnets to dry on my kitchen table for the night. The next morning when I checked on them, my cherries fell apart when I picked them up, so I think I need to continuing working on my combining pieces skills.

Since I had this issue with my cherries falling apart, I have practiced connecting smaller pieces together with my fish tank decoration, as well as my mini vase project. These pieces are still holding together, so I call that improvement!

Getting the Hang of This! (4th Post)

Because of how the food colouring was reacting with the clay I decided to just paint Patrick’s rock. I couldn’t leave Squidward’s house looking that crazy, so I decided to remake it without the food colouring.. and it looks a lot better!

This is my final dried product, I’m a lot happier with this version than the previous. Once it is fully dried I am going to paint and seal it, I’m quite excited to see it finished!

This was by far my favourite thing to create. I was proud of myself because I was able to correct my mistakes instead of just leaving it as is like I normally would with tasks like this. Also, I was able to recreate Squidward’s house rather quickly which surprised me. It ended up being more of a recreation rather than a replica, but I am still very happy with it!

Possibly the Smallest Vase Ever? (5th Project)

I don’t have anything I want to specifically highlight from this post, but after completing my final clay project I do want to go back to this air dry clay tutorial to try and make a full size vase. I found a bottle in my garage that will work perfect for the project and I’m very excited to try it out again!

More Clay Updates! (6th post)

Here is my incense burner completed! I don’t really know what lead me to make a volcano, but it was the first idea that popped into my head after I read Chat GPT’s response to my prompt. If I was to use AI for a tutorial again, I think I would find a reference picture to either use as a prompt or describe in the prompt chat.

Overall, I feel accomplished in my achievements with this learning project. I probably wouldn’t have ever actually gotten around to trying air dry clay if it wouldn’t have been for this assignment, so I am quite thankful for the opportunity. Now that I have made some small accomplishments with clay I can’t wait to improve my skills. In the future I would love to try an actual pottery class now that I know how much I enjoy working with clay.

Thanks for reading and wishing you all a great summer!

To conclude my last project post, here is a picture of my completed SpongeBob decoration for my fish tank. I did paint the sand, but the colour dried to be basically the same as the original clay colour. I am going to buy the dishwasher safe Mod Podge and add a few more details before I call it completely done.

For my 6th clay creation, I wanted to try something more difficult than I have previously, while practicing working with clay free handed. I have been wanting a new incense burner, so why not make my own!

As my learning resource this week, I used ChatGPT. I found ChatGPT to be an alright learning resource. I like that it breaks down your steps into a numbered list, as well as goes into good details with how to. I don’t know if someone that has never used air dry clay before could follow the steps without looking up a supplementary video, but I am a visual learner so maybe that is just me! With this project I didn’t need to look up a video, but I’m sure there are lots on YouTube.

To switch it up for this learning blog post, I made a short time-lapse video of me creating this incense burner, please enjoy! YouTube Video

I used CapCut to stitch the videos together and add the music. It is free to use with lots of different options for adding text, filters, and music to your videos. And as an added bonus, there are no annoying ads to watch in between each step of editing. There is also a premium version, but the free one has to much to choose from I don’t see why you would need to upgrade!

Thanks for reading!

For my fifth project, I used How to Make an Air-Dry Clay Vase as my learning resource. I didn’t think my skills that I have learned so far would allow me to create a large vase like the one shown in link, so I decided to start small. I recently broke a glass ball that used to hold some dried flowers that I’ve saved over the years, and they are quite small, so win win!

First, I did the usual and rolled out a piece of clay. After the clay was rolled out, I cut out a rectangle-ish shape to cover my vase mold with. For a mold, I used a really small lunch box container for packing dipping sauce.

I then placed the container on my wax paper and used the rectangle piece to wrap the container to make the walls for my vase. I made my rectangle a little small, so I had to improvise and roll out a bit more clay to fully cover the sides of the container without the clay being too thin.

Removing the container from the center of the clay was not as daunting of a task that I was making it out to be, I just pushed down from the inside of the container and it slipped right out! I didn’t really want a circular shape like the one above, so I got out some slurry and tried to shape my clay into more of a vase shape. I then rolled out a bit more clay to make a bottom for it.

I roughly guessed with my etch marks the shape of the vase, added slurry to the etch marks and to the bottom of the vase and stuck the pieces together. I then used my sharpest tool to cut out the bottom of the vase from the rest of the clay.

Once my vase was free, I started shaping it with slurry and my fingers until I was happy with the results. To work on detail and add decoration, I used a toothpick to carve out some flower petals on the front. Once the clay started drying though the carve marks looked quite strange, so I quickly filled them with (you guessed it) slurry.

For my fourth clay project I decided to use a tutorial app that I found called DIY Clay Craft. As of right now, I would say this was my least beneficial learning tool. There are short videos for a few mini projects you can make, but there are no detailed steps or instructions to follow. I would say this app would be most useful if you are looking for some inspiration, but, you’re probably going to find more literally anywhere else.

On the app, I did find a video that showed how to create a pineapple that looked like it would be a good way to work on my detail skills. The whole project was for a fruit basket but since I just did fruits for my magnets I wanted to try something else.

Inspired by the pineapple and that I just got a fish tank, I decided to try and make Spongebob, Patrick, and Squidward’s houses as a decoration for the tank. I’m going to assume that everyone knows what I’m talking about, but just incase you don’t, SpongeBob SquarePants is an animated cartoon from the early 2000s and the main character lives in a pineapple!

To start, I attempted to make the sand that the houses sit on. I used one of my tools make sort of a sand underwater look and got the circle shape by using a mason jar lid as a cookie cutter.

I then wanted to try and pre colour my clay to save myself the painting step. My first thought was to use acrylic paint, but that made the clay quite sticky. I tried again using food colouring and that worked a lot better. To get a bright colour though, you have to use a lot more than you think you are going to need.

After getting the yellow to the right shade I used a bit of slurry to smooth the clay and started making a marshmallow shape. I used one of my angled cutting tools to make the lines in the pineapple, then started on the leafy part. I repeated the same steps with food colouring and created more of a teardrop with the green. I used scissors to create the leaves like the video suggested and then stuck the pieces together with slurry. I made sure to make deep etch marks this time to ensure my clay stuck together better than last time!

I then started working on Squidward’s house.. I was proud of the colour I was able to get by mixing blue, red, and a tiny bit of green food colouring, but that was about it.

Because of how the food colouring was reacting with the clay I decided to just paint Patrick’s rock. I couldn’t leave Squidward’s house looking that crazy, so I decided to remake it without the food colouring.. and it looks a lot better!

This is my final dried product, I’m a lot happier with this version than the previous. Once it is fully dried I am going to paint and seal it, I’m quite excited to see it finished!

Thanks for reading!

Before I dive into my magnet creating adventure, I wanted to show my first 100% completed project. To finish my tray I first used acrylic paint, but I couldn’t get the paint to spread nicely on my dried clay. After doing some googling to troubleshoot, I realized that it is important to smooth out clay creations with a wet sponge afterwards to ensure a really smooth surface. As I could not go back and fix this, I used spray paint that I found in my garage. I then used glossy Mod-Podge to seal the paint and add a really nice shine!

Magnet time! My goal with creating magnets was to work on building my detail skills, as well as work on combining different pieces together. I used TikTok (this link was my most used tutorial video) as my learning resource for this project, and I found all the videos to be extremely helpful. My favourite thing about TikTok tutorials is that they are usually short, simple, and to the point. My least favourite thing is that in some cases, video creators skip showing some of the important steps. But for the videos that I have found that was thankfully not the case!

  A lot of the tutorials focused on food magnets so that is what I went with! I made some cherries, a banana, and an egg. I first made the cherries which was actually quite simple. First, I created small balls of clay and then pressed them down with my thumb, sort of like you would with cookies. I then used the trusty snake technique again to make the cherry stems. To create the leaves, I just took little pieces of clay and shaped them to somewhat resemble leaves.

My next task was to create an fried egg. To make the yolk I used the same technique as the cherries and made another little ball of clay to press down. To create the egg white part, I rolled out a small piece of clay to be about 1/4” thick which is what most tutorials recommend. I then used one of my clay tools to cut out the egg white from the clay I rolled.

Lastly and definitely the most challenging, the banana. Instead of a bunch of bananas I wanted to create a single on that was half peeled as I thought that would be the easiest way to go about this task. Creating the actual banana shape was the most challenging part, followed by sticking the peels to the banana. I hand shaped all parts, and used slurry to help the pieces stick together.

When I finished, I left the magnets to dry on my kitchen table for the night. The next morning when I checked on them, my cherries fell apart when I picked them up, so I think I need to continuing working on my combining pieces skills.

Here are my completed magnets painted, sealed, and stuck to my fridge!

I’m unsure of what I want to create next, but I would like to continue to work on the skills I listed above, as well as maybe more shaping and clay colouring.

Thanks for reading!

This weekend I finally had the chance to sit down and start my learning project. My cats have been taking up a lot of my time recently as they were both sick, long story short I learned that cats can need prozac and Louie is one of those cats.

Anyways, I went to Michaels and got all my supplies then got started as soon as I got home. My first task was to learn the skills I mentioned in my last post, so I figured YouTube would be the best place to start. I found this video that worked really well for me, Air Dry Clay Basics- Eanna Merighi.

Eanna covers all the basics in this video and more so it was very nice to not have to search around through different videos to find all the steps. In the video she creates a earring tray so I followed along and created my own!

I really enjoyed myself creating this mini project! It was relaxing to just sit there and create something new. I didn’t find it too difficult, and I can’t wait to see and share my finished results! My next steps are to paint and seal my tray, then it will be ready to go. I think my next task will be to try making a couple fridge magnets, so I can practice creating details and work on connecting clay pieces together!

For my learning project, I have decided that I am going to be learning the skills to create air dry clay art. I have always wanted to try actual pottery, but before investing in taking classes I figured I would dip my toe in the water with air dry clay. What a perfect time to do so!

I have always been interested in pottery. One of my neighbours growing up was a full time artist. She specializes in realism painting, but she also had a room in her house dedicated to her pottery creations. I remember the first time she showed me this room, I immediately wanted my turn with the pottery wheel, but after watching Monnel get a clump of clay started on the wheel I felt too intimidated to try. I loved listening to her share her stories with some pieces she created, how difficult or easy the process was, what inspired her, and so on. 15 years later I am finally taking the time to see if this would be something I would enjoy!

This is a screenshot of a post from a Facebook page that features the artist I spoke of. Monnel is extremely talented!

I have the absolute bare minimum experience when it comes to working with working with clay, so I am going to be starting at the basics before I attempt to make a project. I have created a checklist of the skills I need to learn, as well as supplies I will need to create.

Checklist of Supplies:

• Air dry clay
• sculpting tools
• “Mod-Podge” or sealant for preserving
• food colouring or clay dye to add colours

Checklist of Skills/Techniques:

• basic shaping techniques
• proper kneading and handling
• joining pieces together
• smoothing
• adding details and texture
• proper drying/sealing

I plan to create small projects like jewellery dishes, small trays, etc. until I have the skills somewhat mastered. Once I have completed this, I want to try to create some sort of small sculpture or a vase perhaps, I just haven’t decided yet!

Looking forward to reading all your learning project posts!