In September, I attended a leaf bowl workshop at my clay studio. I like taking quick, two to three hour classes where I can pick up some new tips and tricks and make something different that I normally do (basically, not a gnome).
In this class, we chose a number of green leaves, placed them on a slab of clay, and then used a rolling pin across the back of the leaves. The pressure from the rolling pin allowed the texture of the leaves to be imprinted onto the clay. We used needle tools to carefully cut around the leafs.
Once the leaves were cut out, we began layering them inside a wrapped plastic bowl. We then used balls of clay (hopefully they look like berries or nuts) to fill in spots. Once that was complete, we used a rib tool to smooth out the inside.
Our instructor bisqued fired and then applied a wash on the outside (to bring out the texture of the leaves) of the bowl and added a glaze of our choosing to the inside. I have to say it’s kinda nice to take a workshop and not have to worry about the glazing and finishing portion of the process. We left our leaves on the piece because the leaves burn off in the kiln.
I was honestly scared that mine was going to turn out even more wonky, since this was a process I had never done before and I couldn’t see the outside of the bowl as I was working on it. But my bowl is not terribly bad. I especially like the contrast between the blues and greens of the glaze inside the bowl compared to the raw, textured outside of the bowl.
