Owls

These owls are made from simple pinch pots and can be made small or large enough to sit in the garden.  Start with two equal spheres of clay and make them into pinch pots by pushing your thumb into the center of the sphere and squeezing around the sides until you have a small bowl shape. Do the same to both spheres.  Take your scratching tool (wire tool, fork, comb...) and scratch-to-attach the edges of the bowls.  Then gently push them together and smooth out the seam with your fingers.  This creates the body of your owl.

Now using some extra clay, create your beak, wings, feet, eyes and ear tufts.  For the wings, roll out two small coils of clay and gently press them flat, scratch the end of each shape and scratch the shoulder of your owls body and attach them on. You can make feet the same way but scratch-to-attach them onto the bottom of the body and then use a knife to cut the toes.  I like to squeeze the clay with my pincher fingers to create the ear tufts but you could also roll out small cone shapes of clay and attach them on.  The beak is a small triangle and the eyes are two spheres with a smaller dot pushed into them.  Remember that all of your owls' parts need to be scratched-to-attached on! 

You can also give your owl a feathery texture by scoring the clay with your scratching tool.  HINT:  Don't forget to poke a hole into the hollow space of your owl so that it doesn't explode in the kiln!!!  Let them dry, bisque fire, glaze and glaze fire them.  OPTION:  If your students make a few small owls or other birds, hot glue them onto an interesting piece of driftwood so they appear to be sitting on a branch.

!!!B CR8IV!!!