What can I make from clay at home? Fun all-age ideas to get started

Getting started

So here we are back under another Covid lockdown, the Studio is closed, the pottery wheels are unavailable, and you’ve really been missing getting hands into clay. You’ve managed to pick up a bag of clay, though and here you are sitting with it at your kitchen table!

It can be daunting to get going without the stimulus of a busy group in the studio, so here are some ideas and tips to get you started. Use a board cut from thick cardboard packaging to work on if you don’t have a piece of thin wood or plastic mat.

Getting to know your clay

Empty your head of the need to make something. Imagine you are encountering clay as a material for the first time. Be curious - explore it, poke it, smell it, pick it up and hold it. Notice its weight. What does it feel like on your skin - cool or warm? Sticky or dry?

Find at least 10 different ways to touch it: push it, pinch it, pull it, tear it, roll it, slap it…

Coiling clay

Use both hands to roll the clay into long sausage shapes. Make them different thicknesses. See what emerges when you stick them together - you can try making sausage animals, or squiggles or twist them into vases - but you don’t have to make anything recognisable - just have fun!

Finger puppets

Squeeze a lump of clay onto your thumb. Try modelling it into an owl or an alien or a little person. Find things to push into the clay to make a textured surface. How about your other fingers? Gently ease it off when you have finished. Make lots so they can talk to each other! Perhaps you could make a favourite story come alive.

Pinching clay

Make a round clay ball, about the size of a billiard ball. Holding it in one hand, push the thumb of the other hand right into out without going through it. Starting from the bottom, pinch the clay between your thumb and fingers, turning as you go. Try making a bowl, a flat dish, a tall narrow pot. Make two bowls and join them together to make a hollow shape. Add pieces of clay and texture to create an animal or monster or something abstract.

Clay tiles

Make the clay surface flat by rolling with a bottle or jar or plastic tube. Or just smooth it out with the heel of your hand. Hunt around at home for things you can press into the surface to make marks. If you can go outside, you may find textured surfaces you can push the clay onto, like bark. You can press things into the clay and leave them there to make a pattern or picture.

Safety Note: Clay is a really easy material to clean up, but avoid breathing dry clay dust - wear a mask to deal with it and use a damp cloth. Don’t use tools and implements that you also use for food.

Save or recycle? Clay can be used over and over again. When it dries out it can be broken up and mixed with water to make it malleable again. It only changes permanently when it is heated to temperatures over 600 degrees centigrade. Anything you want to make permanent by firing has to be hollowed out so it is all about the same thickness. All the pieces must be stuck together very firmly by scratching each joining surface and using sticky clay like glue. Clay needs to be bone dry before putting into the kiln.