Template Clay Design Cutting Tips

Video Transcript

"So once you've got your design etched onto the piece, you want to take a really sharp knife. I like to use something like this. And then just gently trace your lines. And after each cut, you can just push that piece of clay out and take it away. Now when you're choosing a design, it's important to remember that you are using a knife and that you are going to need a little bit of space to turn that knife and to pull the piece out. So you don't want to have holes in it that are too small. You want to have nice, broad fields of cutout. It's also important that your clay be set up to the leather hard stage. And what leather hard means is that this clay is firm enough that if I touch it with my finger, I'm not going to smear it, but it's soft enough that I can easily put my fingernail and make an indention. It's about like a hard cheese. If you've got it much softer than that, these cuts are not going to work very well. And if you've got it too hard, then you risk cracking the clay itself. And once you've got all your cutouts of the design that you're trying to make done, you can let this piece dry completely before you smooth the edges. You're less likely to mess it up that way. And then once it's completely dry, just take a wet sponge and run it over those corners so that they won't be so sharp and that the glaze won't pull away from them. And there you have a luminary with a really nice design."