Sea Turtle Casserole Dish Appendages

Series Summary

Ceramics are art works made out of clay bodies that harden with the application of heat. Originating in Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Roman, and Mayan cultures, ceramics have a long history that dates back to the third millennium BC. Pottery was used to create food and water jars, decorative bowls, sacred urns, and religious idols. Potters most traditionally use their hands, but several tools have been developed to aid in the ceramic making process, including the potter's wheel. Ceramics range from functional vessels to decorative sculptures, and remain both a long loved craft as well as a fine art. Everyone loves grandma's casserole. Why not make your own unique ceramic casserole dish with a fun twist. In this free instructional ceramics video series, a master potter will show you how to create a sea turtle casserole dish. Learn how to sculpt sea turtle appendages, throw a casserole dish on the potter's wheel, and how to attach the appendages through scoring and slipping. This project is great to learn a variety of pottery techniques. Give this handmade gift to your favorite family cook, and the dish can be as attractive as what's cooking inside.

Video Transcript

"Alright so now we're going to make a casserole dish but we're going to turn this into a sea turtle casserole dish which is really fun. So what you want to do; I like to do this first is to get, with a sea turtle we're going to need some; some flippers, front and back; we're going to need a head and we're going to need a tail. I already know what the casserole dish is going to look like so I want to, I want to get the head and the tail; and the flippers all made so when I'm ready to put them on they set up and they look real, real good. And me, I'm not very good at making characters; stuff like that but you can go as hard core on this as you want and spend some time. I just like to get the basic impression of one but they always work out; people always know what they are. So here I'm starting with the head; just go and cut it off at an angle, start with the head there o.k. You're making it look like a little turtle, alright. Maybe put some eyes in there with your needle tool; maybe a little mouth. And I know with sea turtles they got a little beak type of thing going on, so I'm going to try and beak it up a little bit and it's getting close to that sea turtle look; alright. Set that aside, so there's the little head. Now maybe just start getting a little flapper looking thing going on right there anyway, alright. Now you can kind of see maybe like there; kind of like a little flapper. One; two, back ones; I'm just kind of rough cutting them right now and another back one. So basically that'll be on the front and these kind of spadey ones will be on the back of the casserole dish, and then these ones will be on the; the front of the casserole dish; it would be in the middle just like that. And then we'll go back and we'll refine all that; it'll look real nice."