January 26, 2009
Lose Weight, Get Strong: Put Your Ceramic Work on the Paper Clay Diet
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Ceramic artist Lisa Merida-Paytes has found paper clay to be a great tool with which to build her ceramic sculptures. |
It’s that time of year. Everyone is trying to stick to those New Year’s resolutions and trim down after the holidays. But today I am sharing a diet plan that you will actually enjoy! This one is for your ceramic work. If you’ve never worked with paper clay, you’ll be thrilled with the doors it can open up in your work. Paper clay improves joining capabilities and decreases warping and shrinkage, all the while reducing the heft of the work. This makes it ideal for building complex or delicate ceramic sculpture. Ceramic artist Lisa Merida-Paytes extols the virtues of paper clay in the upcoming issue of Pottery Making Illustrated and today we’re giving you a preview of that article. So read up, and then put your work on a paper clay diet! Jennifer Harnetty, editor. |
| Strength in Fibers
How would you like your ceramic work to be lighter? Or stronger? Or both? Paper clay may be the answer since it has all the advantages of durability while avoiding the heaviness often associated with regular clay. Made using any type of clay body - earthenware, stoneware, raku or porcelain - paper clay enhances green strength, decreases warping, improves joining capabilities in wet-to-wet and dry-to-dry situations, and you can even attach wet paper clay to bisqued paper clay piece to repair small breaks. Mixing your own paper clay is simple. You’ll need prepared clay slip (commercial or homemade), a drill with a mixer attachment, buckets, bleach, a plastic rib, a respirator, several plaster bats, and paper fibers. Any paper fiber such as newspaper, cotton linter, or photocopier paper can be used to create paper clay, but these types of paper will often develop mold growth if left overnight. I discourage using toilet paper because it contains starch and promotes rot within the clay in as little as a few hours. To eliminate mold, you’ll need to add a tablespoon of bleach and remix. I recommend making paper clay with spray insulation, also known as cellulose fiber and commonly used in insulating attics and homes. I suggest the cellulose for three reasons: strength, time and money. The most important of these being the prefiring strength supplied by the inclusion of the fibrous material. Also, cellulose fiber cuts out the very time consuming step of breaking down traditional paper materials into pulp. |
 Making Paper ClayTo make 10-15 pounds of paper clay, pour two gallons of recycled clay slip or commercial slip into a 5 gallon bucket. Sprinkle three handfuls of cellulose fiber into the slip and mix with the drill mixer. Crumble the fiber as use you add it to the bucket to help prevent dry pockets of material forming in the slip. Mix the slip and fiber for approximately 15 minutes. While mixing, the slip may require more water, but add only small amounts at a time. Once the materials are thoroughly combined, run your hand through the slip to make sure there aren’t any large, dry clumps of fiber remaining. If you find pockets, break them up and continue to mix for several more minutes until the slip comes to a yogurt consistency with tiny threads of texture.
Paper clay slip can be cast directly into molds. To prepare the paper clay for handbuilding, pour the slip onto dry plaster bats and spread it around with a rubber rib until it’s a half inch thick. Wait 10 - 15 minutes for the plaster to absorb the excess moisture and the slip forms a hardened film. Flip the clay over to dry the other side for another 15 -20 minutes. At this point, the clay should be workable as a slab or ready to be wedged for handbuilding. |
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For more on paper clay, check out “Paper Clay: A Primer” in Pottery Making Techniques, available for a new reduced price in the Ceramic Arts Daily Bookstore.
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Tags: Ceramic Sculpture, Handbuilding Techniques, mixing, paper clay
Alan | October 23rd, 2009 at 4:13 pm
I’d be interested in knowing how all these paper clay pieces are being fired. I am in a ceramics class at Ringling College of Art and Design, and we’re being challenged to come up with new, more up to date ways of creating sculptures, and I think metal and paper may be an ingenious way to make a lighter, stronger piece of work. But, since we use electric kilns, and the professor is afraid of causing a great deal of smoke, getting a violent reaction from campus security, she is hesitant to try it out. Does the burn off of the paper cause a great deal of smoke? Or is this only do-able in a pit firing situation? Fortunately, I can build a pit in my back yard. But not at school. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated! aneal
Judith | October 28th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Re smoke when firing paper clay in electric kilns: If you don’t fire higher than 05 ish, and you use the proportions given in these articles, you won’t get smoke, though you will get some awful smells–mostly from metal. Of course, without the metal, you can fire as high as the regular clay needs to mature.
Some people use more paper, or fiber, to make mixture strong, and then do not fire the piece at all–Rebecca Hutchinson is an expert on this, and does beautiful work. If you go to high with paper proportions, you might get smoke.