Air Dried Clay – Nested Cloud Dishes
These nested cloud dishes are made from air dried clay. They are really easy to make, and obviously you could apply the same principle to other shapes.
Materials
- Air dried modelling clay
- Pencil
- Greaseproof paper
- Sharp knife or craft knife
- Tin Foil
- Sandpaper
There are a number of different air dried clay options – the one I like best is Das, as its nice powdery white colour when dry, and reasonably easy to work with.
Method
Firstly draw three cloud shapes that can stack in to each other. Rough and ready is fine. These will be your rough template for the cloud dishes.
Roll out the clay to around 3/4mm thick, and cut out the shapes using your paper templates.
Use a sharp knife to cut round the cloud dishes. They will be a bit rough at this stage, but don’t worry. They can be smoothed down later.
Use your finger and water to smooth out cracks and to to thin out the edges until you get a finish you are happy with.
Set the cloud shape aside, and repeat the cutting, and smoothing for the remaining two clouds, making sure you have shapes that will stack. Any spare clay can be used for gift tags and labels.
Leave a gap of at least 1cm on each bowl to allow the ‘stacking’.
Next, make a ‘mould’ to give the dishes some depth. Roll up tin foil in to a ball, and cover with a piece of greaseproof paper to avoid leaving marks in the clay.
Place the smallest cloud face down over the tin foil mound. Shape until you get a cloud bowl shape you are happy with, before layering up the the remaining two cloud dishes between sheets of greaseproof paper.
Set aside to dry according to the instructions on your air dried clay.
After 24 hours or so, they are ready for use.
