Making Slip & Easy Hump Molds

To make slip I start off with scraps of my clay body and break them into as small of pieces as I can. I let them sit till they are bone dry.

I take them out of the bowl and put them in a ziplock baggy, seal it, and roll them till they are a very fine particle size.

I put the finely rolled clay back in a bowl and add water to cover the clay completely. If after several hours all the water is absorbed, add a little more water. At this point resist the urge to stir the mixture since this increases the amount of lumps. The idea is to end up with as smooth a mixture as possible.

I let the water and clay mixture sit till all the clay is evenly moistened, usually over night. The next day you can stir the mixture or usually I use a hand held mixer to blend up the slip mixture. Next I sieve the mixture and divide it up into pint sized containers with air tight lids.

Later I can use the slip as it is or add mason stains for colored slips. To mix in mason stains to a pint mixture (about a cup of slip) I start out with a teaspoon of mason stain and wet the mason stain in a small glass bowl with a bit of water. Then I add that to the container of slip till I think the color is good to my eye. Later I put a piece of tape on top of the jar of stained slip noting the amount of stain I have added for that particular color. For more details on mason stained slips click the link to Slip Slop Stain and Mixing Mason Stain Slips.

 Save those styrofoam trays which hold food from the grocery store, they make good hump or slump molds.

For these two plates I turned the trays over and rubbed them with Pam sprayed onto a paper towel. The Pam prevents the freshly rolled clay from sticking to the styrofoam and allows the plate to release more easily. For these two plates I rolled out a slab of clay and textured them.
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Then I draped them over the upside down styrofoam tray, let them firm up a bit then flipped them over and let them dry on a piece of wallboard till dry. Don't let the plates dry completely on the hump mold since the clay shrinks (contracts) as it dries and that may warp the plate. Once they were dry I sanded the edges with a green scrubby (wearing a mask). Dry clay is harmful to the lumg so please wear a mask. These two plates are in the kiln being bisque fired. Thanks for reading and for all your comments..