Bears

These bears are made from simple pinch pots and can be made realistic or cute little teddy bears.  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 bear.  Now make one smaller pinch pot and turn it upside down onto the top of your body to create the head.  Scratch-to-attach it on and blend it in well to the shoulders of the bear.  

Now using some extra clay, create your ears, eyes, nose, arms and legs. For the arms and legs, roll out four coils of clay that are about the same size and thickness, scratch the end of each coil and scratch the body where you want to attach them on, blend them in well with your fingers.  You can push a small round tool into the ends of the coils to make paw prints.   The ears are easy to make by flattening a small sphere of clay and cutting it in half making two equal ears.  The nose is a small triangle and the eyes are two spheres with a smaller dot pushed into them.  You can also add details like a honey pot, clothes or make your bear catching a salmon in the river.  Remember that all of your bears' parts need to be scratched-to-attached on! 

You can also give your bear a furry texture by scoring the clay with your scratching tool.  HINT:  Don't forget to poke a hole into the hollow space of your bear that goes through the body and all the way into the air that you've trapped in the head so that it doesn't explode in the kiln!!!  Let them dry, bisque fire, glaze and glaze fire them. 

!!!B CR8IV!!!