Pinch Pots
Terracotta pinch pot cold finished with paint and beeswax
No decals to share today – maybe next post…. This pinch pot is a sample project that I made for my after school kid’s clay class and was inspired by the book Finding One’s Way With Clay: Creating Pinched Pottery and Working With Colored Clayswritten by Paulus Berensohn. I thought it would be a great project for my students whose ages range from 2nd – 5th grade. I tried to make it a fun project by instructing the kids to animate their pots by adding noses and in some cases full blown faces on their pinch pots.
Terracotta nose pinch pot cold finished – my daughter's nose pot
I normally use low fire white earthenware for my kids classes and decided to mix it up and bring in a terracotta. You should have seen the kids reactions! Their whole clay knowledge base was turned upside down – they had no idea that clay comes in colors and of course I had lots of potty talk happening. “Ewwww - this clay looks like poop!” etc. etc. 
During our last class, we used acrylic paints to finish the pots and then sealed the exteriors with beeswax as an alternative to glazing since I won’t see the kids till mid January. We planted grass seed in the pots – which should be fun if it grows. The grass in my daughter’s pot is just now starting to sprout – I’ll post a follow up photo if it turns out. I think I’m going to make some more pinch pots – it was pretty satisfying.
Meanwhile, I added a WordPress Plugin that allows user to edit their own comments now for a set period of time in the event of typos etc. – if you have any problems with it, let me know. I also recently upgraded to WP 2.7 which allows nested comments, but it’s not functional on my blog yet because I need to update my theme to be compatible with 2.7. I just haven’t had the motivation to update it yet.
I have some errands to run right now so until later,
~Cynthia
Eva
December 22, 2008 at 1:45 pm //
So we are looking forward to a pink hedgehog with green quills…
ang
December 22, 2008 at 4:10 pm //
yeh i noticed the little timer yesterday, it’s a great idea…and i got to your blog post straight away today without your ‘front page’ did you change something else?
denise
December 22, 2008 at 4:19 pm //
Oh fun! might have to try this with my daughter.
ps. fyi, the link on the title delivers a 404 error from your site
Linda Starr
December 22, 2008 at 6:23 pm //
Wow, these are beautiful, for a minute I thought you were taking a new direction with pinch pots, especially because of the turquoise color. By cold finished, do you mean they are bisque fired and then not glaze fired but painted and waxed? Happy Holidays to you and your family.
Undaunted
December 22, 2008 at 8:33 pm //
I thought the same as Linda Star, that we were going to see a series of pinch pots. It looks lovely. I’m glad you’re going to make some more. And I love your daughters pinch pot as well!
I’m just starting to experiment with different clays. Today I bought a white clay and a coarse, heavily grogged clay, which should fire to a lovely speckled colour – I don’t know though, the picture in the catalogue looked different to the fired piece I saw at class. We shall see. I will certainly have fun playing with a different texture anyway!
patricia griffin
December 23, 2008 at 6:49 am //
Lucky students! Great idea to finish via painting so the kids could get the final product and plant the grass seeds. I’ve been asked about doing children’s classes and it seems pretty daunting, but I really like this idea!
Cynthia
December 23, 2008 at 8:06 am //
Eva – hehehe…Don’t let my daughter hear you say that! Although she’s such an animal lover that she might think a hedgehog is groovy!
Ang – What little timer? Oh wait, I don’t see that since I have unlimited edit rights. I think posters have a certain amount of time to edit their comments before they become locked. I haven’t changed anything else – not sure…I wonder why you were going to my front page instead of my blog post? I always post my url as http://coloradoartstudio.com/blog in my comments on other’s sites. Not sure, unless you’ve linked to my home page?
Denise – Thanks, I’ll fix that link pronto! Yes – super fun project with kids, though they’re always so surprised at how hard it is to make a pinch pot. Well not really hard, but they try to mimic my work and well, their kids and don’t have the same attention to detail that an adult might.
Linda S. – That’s exactly what I mean by “cold finish”! I think a lot of people do this type of thing with sculptural work – maybe pit/smoke fired. I’ve seen shoe polish, and other non traditional finishes polished with wax. Before I decided to concentrate on ceramics, I used to do quite a bit of painting and have a lot of supplies that I pull out every now and then.
Linda U. – I would actually like to make more pinch pots because they’re small and transportable. I could make them while watching a movie or something. Plus, there’s something lovely about the fact that it would be impossible to reproduce a single one because of the very nature of the process. I love the speckled clays and used to use them in school quite a bit until I moved to white clays.
Patricia – I normally try to pick a project for our last 2 classes that doesn’t require firing to provide closure for the kids who don’t sign up for the next session. I do have a hard core group of students though that have been with me from the beginning. Teaching kids is a calling for sure, Patricia – you have to make sure you’re ready for chaos, but also fun, laughter, frustration, inspiration, amazing work and also some dud projects. The kids are good at rolling with the punches though. I almost always take an informal poll to find out which projects they liked the most. I haven’t run out of projects to make with the kids yet after 1.5 years of teaching after school classes. Now, I have a line up of projects that are ready to go and that I’m thinking of making an e-book.
Mary T.
December 23, 2008 at 8:17 am //
I like your daughter’s pot and the grass in the pink pot should be a lot of fun. I’d not heard of the cold finish before. Neat way to do it. You’ve done the main thing of giving it a firing and then just painted it. Is that what they do with the Mexican pots with the bright colors.
Cynthia
December 23, 2008 at 8:23 am //
Mary – Yeah, it is pretty darn cute!! I think a lot of Mexican pots are actually glazed, but I figured since these were going to be planters, and terracotta planters aren’t always glazed this would work well.
LB
December 23, 2008 at 8:23 am //
I like the nose! Cute!
ang
December 23, 2008 at 5:08 pm //
i’ve readded you to my blog list and it goes straight to the blog post now, yey…
Undaunted
December 24, 2008 at 1:40 am //
Cynthia, about the “cold finish” – since these pieces have only been bisque fired, are they water tight? And if not, then will the moist soil affect the paint on the outside?
Anna Meenaghan, Contemporary Artist
December 24, 2008 at 7:42 am //
I am contemporary artist myself and felt I just had to leave a comment on your blog. What I have seen here today really is something special. I will definately bookmark your blog and recommend it to my friends and family. I wish you only the very best for the future.
Nancy
December 24, 2008 at 8:26 am //
Merry Christmas Cynthia