 It's me Erica with ATD. I hope you can hear me. Okay. I am Trying to make sure you guys have a good view And I have a different mic in so hopefully you can hear me. Okay, but I will double-check it right now and Sounds okay, I know most of you guys probably are not awake right now because it is early for my live What's up, Sandy? How are you today getting ready for your snowboarding trip? If you guys don't know I'm Erica This is artist till death and we go live most every day at 6 p.m. But today This piece Needed to be termed so I thought I would go live early I threw it two days ago and it dried yesterday to leather hard which is Where it's not completely dry? This is what this clay looks like when it's completely dry. I mean I carved into it a little bit, but it's still very Trimmable which is my favorite part about throwing. I would have done this yesterday. I should have done this yesterday, but I Just Life got away from me yesterday So I'm going to be trimming this today if you guys want to watch It's my favorite way from the piece And it's where you really get to refine the shape that you're going for And all the colors will come out. I Entering because you have to put everything back in the center the wheel so that it turns properly A lot of people are good at tapping it into the center, but I'm not so you can see little scratches where I was using it to see where What part of the base was outside of everything else while it was going around and that's kind of how You can tell if something is centered or not. So you can use a nail or a needle and just put a scratch in where It's a little bit Outside of where everything else is and you can just move it towards the center Some people can just tap it into place. I cannot I have to do the scratch thing I'm not an expert at many things when it comes to ceramics, but I do enjoy it What's up Donna? How are things in Australia? Kathy? How are you? So the first thing I do is trim away any rough edges at the foot. I want to make this a really Kind of like this one. I Want to kind of look like it's floating above the foot and So that's where I'm going to go with this if you guys Want to come along with me? It doesn't take long To trim typically I use smaller tools to trim because I don't mind it taking a long time. I Really like this part It's what almost made me get into doing wood turning But I don't have time to do wood turning For the space or the ability to deal with a whole bunch of Sand nope sawdust y'all it's early for me to so words are not Are you here? I don't know what just happened Yeah, we are compulsive creators So I don't know if you guys just saw that but I was talking about how this bit is kind of a different color than this up here and that's because I've gotten to Trim away that kind of dirty water coating and it shows the True color of The clay Donna says I just have to say I love your YouTube channel and I enjoy watching all your videos Well, thank you so much for that. It's It's always a little bit intimidating to put yourself out there on YouTube Especially with a medium that I'm not as confident in like ceramics versus Resin I definitely have a lot more comfortability with Epoxy, I know epoxy inside it out. Whereas clay I know Okay in it off and hopefully it'll get Buffering so I think I fixed the buffer problem. So Yeah, I didn't Take time to learn much of the The facts around Clay I couldn't tell you what Temperature this even gets fired to I just know that it's Cone six clay. There's different clays for different Uses and different clays have to get heated up to different temperatures This one is a low fire clay. It's a cone six five or six And there that is just basically a temperature rating I suppose That this will get fired to I wish I knew all of the numbers and things like that I'm sure I'll eventually learn after Getting back into clay, you know in my spare time Which is basically a joke that I? Tell myself because what is spare time anymore? But I do have to go to the dentist today So I thought I would get this Trimmed and alive posted because I don't know How life is gonna be after I leave the dentist today When you work with a lot of darker clays sometimes you get little I don't know some clays are rougher than others This one is no exception. There's a big rock in this one. It's a big. It's not that big. I Guess it is compared to the particle size of the rest of it So it's made this little hole right here. So I'll have to at least trim down into that if you like the last Angle better than this one. Let me know So with how I did this piece I I just kind of cut away Some of the dark clay and put the white clay where that dark clay used to be and So because that the lighter clay isn't worked all the way through the piece It is possible that I'm going to trim away a Lot of where the white clay is Because it just doesn't go that deep into the piece because of how I Kind of did the piece in the beginning So I'm gonna try and not to trim too much of that away You just started your second cup of coffee. I actually don't drink coffee Oddly enough it makes me tired. I Know that's Not logical Typically people drink coffee and it wakes them up I on the other hand Get sleepy with coffee or Red Bull And I think it's because of being ADHD, which is only I don't talk about much on the channel I feel like Either everybody is ADHD or There's just a stigma around it like all artists have to be ADHD And so It's only I'm not ashamed of But I don't want it to be like oh you're an artist because ADHD or the other way around Thanks, Chris. Yeah, I Whenever I second guess myself like should I even put this on the channel? I Kind of just remind myself that there's probably other artists out there. Maybe that even watch the channel that Maybe Needs a little bit encouragement. Maybe needs to see that Even people that have been on YouTube for a while Have vulnerabilities. I Mean I definitely do I'm not Super confident in every piece that I create I had a lot of half pieces in my studio where I need to kind of get on with it because I Put it off because I'm not confident in it or I get to a point where I'm like I don't like how this is looking so I'm just gonna walk away for a minute and then I just stay walk away Or I get to a point where I like how it is and I don't want to mess it up. So I'll Walk away from it because I have doubts on The next step what if the next step messes up what I'm working on and I lose the progress that I've made But I think that's something every artist sealed with oh so most like mass produced type of Ceramuses I guess or ceramic artists would have already had this piece trimmed and probably the next one working But I'm not a mass production Ceramuses and I Kind of it's almost therapy for me. This is my meditation and I'm okay with it taking longer because I love this process But I just know some ceramic people are gonna see this video and be like, let me tell you what you're doing wrong And if that happens, it's fine. I kind of Live under the impression that there's nothing wrong in art. It's all perspective and Everybody has opinions So I'm using just a number of different wired tools They're just little Loops of metal That are sharp on one side Like I have a sharp edge I'm just using that to kind of break down all of Sorry, you keep getting calls and things What's up Stephanie? I love watching this. I'd love to learn, but I'm not something I could take on Doing ceramics is something that Takes a lot of material a little bit of space Then you have to find a kiln Luckily in Dallas We have maker spaces and so They have like wheels there that you can go and use and they also have kilns And that's where we cut all of our clear shapes. And so when Jeff goes up there to work on Cutting new shapes or existing shapes for the shop He'll take my ceramics up there and make sure they get fired And it's really sweet that he does that for me that way I can Stay here and run the shop and Be productive and I don't have to take you know half a day to go and make sure my pieces Get fired And it saves us from having to get two memberships to that place Which is like 70 bucks a month So yeah, I I think it's I Agree Donna the fact that no matter which way I choose to create Jeff really supports me I think you know in a relationship. It's important to have Objective support and kind of what I mean by objective support is I know that if I was doing this too much and neglecting the shop or you guys or you know other things that we really need to Stay on top of to you know not lose our house and have food on the table He would keep me in check. I'm sure he would tell me, you know Maybe that's pick specific time to allocate towards this and not Hurt the business for the sake of I Guess what would be considered a hobby Because I haven't I have yet to sell even one piece of ceramics. I Haven't listed any as available, but I'm going to soon All the ones that I have finished right now are not cute. They were first attempts But I intend on listing them at very affordable prices because I am no expert in ceramics on our website Maybe even this weekend Jeff will take pictures for me and I'll get them listed in case anybody is interested Maybe I should give you guys more of a bird's eye What's up Stephanie? This is what makes you special your honesty and keeping it real Thanks for doing all you do and being genuine to help others too. Oh, I thank you so much for that I really love hearing what you guys think and getting your opinions on stuff It's important to have friends that also do art to bounce ideas So that's why a lot of times on my channel when I'm working on something or have an idea or I Feel like something will work, but I want to bounce ideas off of you know, my art friends. I always come to you guys Because y'all are my art friends Yeah, I have people here, but also I know you guys have a Lot of familiarity with what I do So I love hearing from y'all and seeing what you guys think So it means a lot that you guys take time out of your day To check in with me see what we're doing and tell me what you think Thank you, Kathy. Can you repurpose the stuff you're cutting off? So yes. Yes, you can so all this stuff that I'm trimming and Everything that is let me I'll show you in a second Let me just get this smoothed off. I almost have this shape how I want it and this is called a foot And when you're trimming the idea is kind of two two things you're refining the shape And you're cutting away anything that's excess to make the piece heavier Um the thicker your the walls or the The clay body is the more risk you have of moisture being in there And if you put anything that has any moisture in it in a kiln it could explode I mean, it's not going to explode out of the kiln. It'll just wreck all the pieces that are around it Okay, so for all of this that is surrounding The bucket on the wheel all of this You can absolutely reuse it. Um all of this stuff that's kind of melted liquid clay you can reuse it um I did A piece that's getting fired right now and I piped on basically what looks like a uh a sweater pattern and I used basically just melted clay from the sides of my Um trimming To do it and you can um take all of this Put it in a bucket let it melt back down dry it out and then It turn it back into this kind of clay I don't typically do that because you need well you need space or Um equipment one one or both of those so you can Kind of put it in this essentially a stand mixer for clay and let it dry out to the right consistency and then Wedge it which I don't do because I don't have the time or I don't think my hands have the ability to just need clay. I also don't bake fresh bread partially because I don't want to need it And partially because There's perfectly good bread at the store I have all the respect for people that make their own bread though Bye sandy. Have a good day Thank you crish me too Okay, um you're adding pieces to You're adding crystals to a piece Stephanie and it's taking a long time. I also look at stoning on artwork as meditative because You kind of don't have to think about it that much You just kind of can zone out and just as long as you're making sure that the stones are where they're supposed to be then Your job's done all right, so now i'm just Kind of burnishing down all of the high points And any of the lines that I kind of trimmed into it Just taking a thin layer of clay off with this just You can use what they call a rib, but i'm just using this Like business card blank Just to smooth it all down Let's see how we like it Let me just Clean off this Just smooth it All right, let's set this somewhere and see if we like the shape. Um, we'll just use steps I like it. It's not very um It's not very bottom heavy And I think it gives that floating look like i'm talking about it just kind of looks Very nice the weight of it is It's still kind of heavy down here on the bottom But I want to trim any more in risk getting rid of more of the white But it's also up here So I think it's a good shape for sure And the last thing I do Is sign it I want to get a stamp made Then you can just kind of stamp your signature in it, but I don't have a stamp Don't know how to make a stamp And so i'm just going to carve my initials in there My new married initials And then a year 24 How wild is it that it's 2024? I love it. Love this little piece And I love that you guys were here watching me Make it um, it will dry um, this is this Color dry, so it'll dry to this but after it's fired It'll go darker than this one. This is just a regular terracotta And it was this color when before it was fired, but then after it was fired it was this color And so this will be almost black after it's fired And the white will be a bright white after it's fired I want to do more that are this shape I think that's really nice. I think they call it like a moon base Or a moon jar. This is the white clay after it was bisque fired. You can hear A definite difference between that one and this one So this was just fired up to cone sticks and it's ready to be glazed But I don't know what glaze I want to put on it. So I'm kind of Stuff with just a really pretty shape base that I don't know what to do with And I'm super into adding these textures into them As well, but I don't think I'll add any textures to this guy. I like it Just how it is. I do believe But we'll see Um, what's up, Cheryl? I did this one the other day. It was on just a white body clay I need to do the inside, but I poured my leftover resin over it and It caught in The grooves that I carved into it super well I wasn't sure what the resin would do On it, but it did some this and so I'm pretty pumped about it I need to trim the drips off the top and resin the inside, but Yeah, I'm not mad at that at all. I might do more resins pieces now that I saw how that one looks but Yeah, all my bases are different shapes and sizes And we'll see But I appreciate you guys being here with me today and um Yeah, I gotta go to the dentist But I hope you guys have an amazing day Be kind of one another because you never know what someone's going through and I always remember We do the tests so you don't have to we'll see you guys later. Bye