Modeling clay with homemade pottery tools.
Potters take the most basic ingredient, the earth, and form it into a multitude of vessels and statuary. It makes perfect sense that they also transform primitive household and found objects into essential tools for the craft. Kitchens and garages are full of potential ceramic tools, as is the good earth outside your door.
Household
The garage holds all manner of pottery tools. You can easily make a cut off wire iwith any wire and two 6-inch pieces of tree limbs for the handles. Any canvas will make a good wedging table surface. Old saw blades, paint scrapers, needles, and putty knives are good for scraping clay, incising and trimming. Forks, knives and assorted kitchen utensils work well as scrapers and modeling tools. A clothespin works well to scribe parallel lines on a pot. All sides of pencils function as punches, stipplers and scrapers. Cookie cutters and lids can be shape cutters or decorating tools. You can use scissors to cut and shape a credit card into many forms of ribs and kidneys. Notch the edges to make textured scrapers with repeating patterns.
Earth
Mother nature herself offers many clay decorating possibilities. The first tools used with early pottery always came directly from the earth. Sharpen any stick and you will find yourself holding a lovely clay working incisor and cutter. Anything pressed into wet clay will leave an impression and leaves are a favorite motif. Pine cones and other miscellaneous gifts from the earht will create beautiful images far surpassing any store bought items. Popcorn and vermiculite make an interesting application for surface texture.
