For Duchess-Crap I've made with clay

[Clang McFly]

Are those old world Santas? Are your boys interested in this?

Yes, I just glazed them yesterday, I'll try and get a decent picture of them all shiny and shit.

My boys will play with it every now and again, but they're not really interested in it as a hobby. My 14 yo makes wire wrapped beaded bookmarks, that he sells at the fairs with me. He likes going to them, most of them have music & food (his 2 favorite items in life).

Do you fire them in a kiln? I will try and make it to the fair this year. I went to the Hopkington fair last week.

Yes, I have 2 kilns in my basement, as well as a pottery wheel and a shit load of other crap.

Most pieces get fired twice-the 1^st is called a bisque firing. This basically turns the clay into a porous glass like material. The temp is around 1900 degrees for this process.

The second firing is the glaze firing. Although you don't always have to put glaze on a piece (once they are bisqued you can color them with just about any type of medium) Most glaze is actually different chemicals and crystals that are mixed with different grades of rust to achieve a certain color or effect. The glaze fuzes to the piece, and doesn't chip as easily as acrylics would. The temp for this process is usually around 1700 degrees.

I took a pottery class in college I could never get the wheel to go slow enough with my big clunky lead feet. I always ended up with more clay on me than on the wheel.