Don't think of an elephant

A very long time ago, when my son was toddling, he loved it when I made him little "balloons" out of play-doh. He loved to squish them to hear them pop. Back then they were little hollow play-doh blobs, and later, when I took my first clay class, I remembered those little balloons and used that technique to make my first kiln fired ceramic pieces.

When you're first starting out with anything you make little mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes turn out to be something fun. For instance, this little elephant I made early on rattled when it was shaken. Someone in the ceramics class suggested the noise meant it wasn't perfect because a piece had broken loose inside.

I decided I liked that noise and so purposely started making all of my work with a loose piece of clay inside to rattle around. It wasn't long before I started making tiny bisqued hearts to put inside each one of my sculptures and that's what you'll hear rattling around inside just about every artaed figure.

This post's etsy game is this: What is it an elephant never does? Convo me from the etsy site and I'll create a coupon for free shipping on your next artaed etsy purchase!