A beginner's guide to clay (what clay should I start with?)

Hello you dirty potters, how are you today? Today's video is going to be a short overview on a subject that I get asked a lot on my social media on Instagram and Twitter and the like and that is what clay should I use first? A lot of you are probably just getting ceramic artwork and pottery and you kind of wonder like what clay should I use first and there's a lot of different clays in the world and I mean a lot of different clays in the world. Each of them have their own categories, their own feels, their own colors, their own types, their own firing temperatures but in today's video I'm going to give you an overarching definition of a lot of the categories, colors, and types of those clays so that you can make the best choice for your work. Now I do understand when people ask this question they're generally asking hey I'm just getting into pottery what's the very first clay that I should pick up and there's no real one overarching answer that I would give to anyone asking that specific question. Some people want to make jewelry with their clay bodies and that doesn't really require a lot of consideration towards food safety and your clay body. Some people want their stuff to be super white, super shiny, very tasty with the color. In those cases I would suggest a porcelainous clay body. Some people want to sculpt with their stuff, they want it to be extra hard, they want to build really well with it but they want it to take water very well. Well in most cases I would suggest something with a grog in it but for a real beginner most of you have no idea what category of clay any of those go into. In today's video we're going to talk about those categories. Firstly before we start anything let's go over the categorization of most clay bodies. You're going to notice that I'm using words like most majority of the time it's because there's always outliers to these basic rules that I'm about to give you. I'm just saying that because there's always one nerd in the comments below who's like I have a cone 5 porcelain clay and you said they're only that cone 10. I didn't say always I said generally shut your face. Generally speaking there are three different categorizations in which clay can be put into. That's earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain clay bodies. Each of them have their own utilities, each of them have their own feel, each of them have their own firing ranges, and we'll talk about that as we go along. A lot of you might be confused with some of the definitions and you're thinking we can't just oversimplify this and just say clay is clay why not? Well there's generally three different categorizations of clay. There's earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. That's a very general thing. That being said throughout those or inside of those there are different chemicals and different things that make clay different all throughout. I think a lot of people seem to think that companies just dig clay out of the ground they analyze it and go this is this type of clay but that's not true. What most companies do is they have recipes much like glazes how people can make their own glazes they can make their own clays as well. What a lot of companies do is they find a recipe to a certain feel color type and firing temperature of clay they get clay out of the ground they filter it a bit they add those chemicals in much like making your own glaze and it comes out a certain way. In the same way that glazes have certain firing temperatures there are clays with certain firing temperatures as well and in the same way that a glaze might come out a certain color so does a clay body. They're very different but you should know that most of these are not what we call wild clay most of these are produced clay bodies. We're very spoiled nowadays and that we can get exactly what we want out of the clay bodies with a company that manufactures a lot of these chemicals for us. With that being said let's go over the three main categories in which most of your pottery clay is going to be found. Earthenware. Earthenware clay bodies are almost synonymous with low fire clay bodies. Most earthenware clay bodies are fired around 05, 04, 06 the low fire ranges before it even gets into the positive scale. Generally speaking when you fire earthenware clay bodies they end up being a little bit coarse and they're not fired as high or as strong as other clay bodies in the mid and higher fire ranges. Because of this they end up being porous and they're generally not accepted as a functional food safe thing. The pores when you fire them don't open and close very tightly they kind of stay open a bit so sometimes they will accept food, bacteria, liquids into the clay body themselves. They're seen as more of a craft clay and generally speaking most potters do not use them for functional wear. Mainly because their low firing point doesn't allow them to get anywhere near the point of vitrification which is the fancy word for made into glass. When you fire clay bodies after a certain point they become non-porous and generally speaking that's completed at cone 10 or above but the higher you fire something the more the pores close up and become a bit safer to put glass or glaze like minerals over them so they fuse into the clay body and become not only stronger but generally less porous for everyday functional use. Low fire clays just can't go high enough in order to reach that point so generally speaking earthenware is not really the call for a lot of functional potters but a lot of us who just want to play around with clay and craft use this as a fine medium. As a general rule and this is a very general rule because there are outliers to this that can be very easily illustrated but the higher that you fire clay body the stronger and the less porous it becomes. That's why porcelain is always seen as like the king of functional foodware although most mid-fire cone five cone six stonewares work fine for general use. No one's dying out here out of mid fire stone. If you're looking for the pure aesthetic of earthenware you have to be a bit careful with it because earthenware usually fires out a little bit more opaque than higher fired clay bodies especially that of a white clay body with non-grog in it or a porcelain or porcelainous clay body. That means when you look at the bag you're gonna go okay that's the color it's gonna come out. A lot of the times it comes out a bit more opaque than that. Potter tip! I just said the word fired out. Some of you don't know what that means and yes it might be a word that I just made up. Generally speaking the color of the clay body when you first buy the bag of clay doesn't fire the same shade nor the same color as the bag of clay itself. What I mean by this is let's take a very well-known low fire clay let's take steve's white for example. Steve's white looks like this kind of grayish talcum powder type of base to it but when you fire it when it fires out it becomes white, white opaque but still white. That's because when it fires out a lot of clays end up not looking like the original base of what the bag of clay looks like. This happens with a lot of glazes as well. It's more of a chemical reaction thing than anything else but a lot of you will probably notice that your like rutile blue even in a bottle if you don't make the glaze yourself will look kind of red. It's generally because the chemical reaction is what makes the color and it's not exactly the base of the color that you're buying. So many people wonder how their clay body is going to look after it fires out that the shop that I go to Alpha Fire Arts in Sacramento has an entire test tile wall. A test tile is a piece of clay a tile that you test things on. I don't know how to explain it to you other than that if you're super new but that is what it is. A test tile is a tile that you test things on but the tile is made of so you get the point. In this shop they organize it beautifully they have the clay body so you can see the clay body right below you then they have this giant test tile it's cut kind of in half like this with the fired out product with no glaze on it and then the fire product that's fully fired and fully glazed. You will notice a very startling difference in between the clay body color the fired out clay and the actual glazed product. They all look massively different and if they don't look super different they look a tinge different with the shade of color they have in difference in between the clay body the fired out products and the actual fully glazed product. They look very different so don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you got a bag of clay that is a color then you're going to get that exact same shade and color. Let's move on to stoneware clay body. Stoneware clay bodies generally being fired to a higher fire than earthware clay bodies are generally considered a bit less porous if not semi-porous more food safe and a bit stronger. Stoneware clay bodies usually fire out a bit less opaque but still semi-opaque if you're looking for really strong clarity in your glazes I wouldn't go for a stoneware clay body granted there are stoneware clay bodies that don't have stone or grog in them we'll explain that in a second. Many stoneware clay bodies are produced and have an additive added to them called grog. Grog is essentially the fancy potter word that we use for little tiny rocks inside of our clay body. A lot of stoneware clay has this but don't worry it doesn't really hurt your hands. Companies make sure that they're kind of tumbled around, gridded, sanded down so that way they can put them in your clay body for more workability. This works out for the durability the structure the stability for a lot of your clay A lot of sculptors actually like grog in their clay body because it allows them to build a little bit taller with a little bit more safety as for porcelain doesn't generally have these little tiny grog rocks in them so it's a bit harder to work either wider or taller without the project flopping down on you. Granted there are a couple of sculptors who work with exclusively porcelain and don't let them drag you down they think their farts smell good and I don't know what their deal is. There's always one of them in the comments below I only use porcelain Potter tip there are different levels of grog I want to tell you that now different clay manufacturers add different levels of grog to different clay bodies to make sure that the workability is exactly what you want it to be so there might be a clay body and I'm just throwing numbers out there with 10% grog in it or 30% grog in it and this grit of grog in it and this grit of grog in it don't make the mistake of going up to the table or the cashier and saying hey don't the potter said I need clay with grog in it I need a clay with a lot of grog in it they will give you rocks they will give you a clay body that feels like five o'clock shadow on your hands for an hour while you throw with it trust and believe that you want to make sure you look into the clay body itself and see how much grog is in there and maybe talk to the person behind the counter and say hey how much grog does this have in it or compare it to other clay bodies and see relative to other grog clay bodies really heavily grog clay bodies maybe like a straight sculptor clay body in comparison to the other clay bodies that way you can fit something that feels a bit nicer for your hands instead of throwing with a pumice stone generally speaking stoneware clay bodies are fired at a higher fire than earthenware clay bodies like I said earlier but because of that they're generally stronger less porous and a bit easier to work with for craft generally speaking a lot of us use cone five cone six stoneware clay bodies in order to get a lot of cups bowls mugs teapots there's no shame in using these for functional wear potter tea as a bonus tip a lot of the clay bodies that are discovered by potters who make their own clays are bought out by companies for that recipe and they end up producing and selling them to other people so for example there's a porcelain out there called dave's porcelain a man named dave ended up producing the recipe to make that porcelain clay body and it is now sold to the general public steve's white is a low fire clay body a very popular one at that the recipe was produced by a person named steve this person then sold it to a company that company now produces it coleman porcelain is a very high-end porcelain it was made by a person named tom coleman tom coleman knows has developed the recipe it was bought out by a company and now a company produces and sells that to the rest of you that is essentially originally a potter's recipe that is being produced by a company specifically for you to buy let's move on to porcelain clay porcelain clay being the last on the list is the highest fired of all the clay bodies being outside of like space shuttles and car breaks and things of that nature that we use for a lot of our equipment on here on earth as opposed to mars i don't know these porcelain clay bodies are fired at a higher temperature than stoneware and earthenware and because of that they're generally considered a bit more food safe less porous and much more strong than the other two when they're fully fired because of those three factors they're generally considered a little bit better for functional use everyday use they take colors extremely well they usually fire out white they're not as opaque as stoneware and earthenware meaning that if you put a glaze on them that glaze will really show its true colors that being said don't think just because porcelain generally shows like real good tasty colors on that clay body mean that the other clay bodies aren't as good i love other clay bodies with other colors just because the chemical reaction in between what the clay is made out of and the glaze itself give you a world of color a giant variety of them so you know if you're thinking right now well porcelain is just the best you might want to get that out of your head generally speaking porcelain is not really meant for sculpture unless you're a very niche sculptor who loves to sculpt or carve with porcelain ware that being said i know tons of sculptors who sculpt with porcelain specifically because it's their niche and it works for their work and their colors and whatnot but even those sculptors will fully admit that if they could have a grog version of their clay that wouldn't mess up the workability of their work or the smoothness or maybe the opaqueness of their work they would probably take it in a heartbeat it would just make it way easier for them to sculpt because they have that durability and stability while they're working with a medium porcelain also generally has this kind of stereotype of being difficult to work with but that's not really true it just requires a certain amount of respect you can't really throw most porcelain around like you can with stoneware or grog like clay but the porcelain at least that it's good quality phase is akin to cream cheese this is one of the reasons why at least once a year on tiktok and instagram you see potters who will like get a package of cream cheese from the store to wedge it and throw it on the wheel that's because to a normal person it seems super difficult like wow you're so skilled that you can do that with food but realistically speaking cream cheese kind of feels like medium quality porcelain and that's why we can basically make a bowl out of cream cheese on the wheel if you wanted and although it makes great quality for tiktok to other potters in the culture we're like yeah that's um that's not special it's very normal for most of us porcelain clay is usually found in a white clay body it is very difficult for me although i have found a couple it's very difficult for me to find a porcelain clay body that does not fire out either purely white or some type of off white it's very difficult to find a porcelain that is not a white clay body this means for all the darker clay bodies that usually have a chemical reaction where some of the blues will become a bit darker some of your reds will become a little bit redder giving it that real iron high iron feel to it porcelain doesn't really attribute to those chemical reactions if you have white porcelain pure you're gonna get whatever glaze you put on it and the chemical reactions that you would get from some stoneware or red clay bodies generally don't happen unless you have a very specific type of porcelain generally speaking i don't really suggest people choose porcelain as their very first clay body because it's nothing but negatives if you like or dislike it or if it's workable or not workable for you you kind of close off a lot of avenues to you for example if you work with porcelain for your first clay body and you end up liking it and you go with all the other porcelains and you end up liking them then you never really get to discover the avenue the chemical reactions the glaze possibilities that you would get with stoneware and other colored clay bodies cultural potter tip i should warn you about this now there are two different types of people that over fetishize porcelain in the ceramic art world well one of them is not really in the ceramic art world but hear me out there's the beginner potter who seems to go along with the stereotype that porcelain is a high tier high skill medium of clay and because of it they try really hard to get to the level of porcelain thinking that oh if it's harder to work with and i can work with it that must mean that i'm a better potter than other potters who cannot work with it so they'll do things like brag like oh i can work with porcelain oh you work with porcelain i work with porcelain oh my god oh porcelain but realistically speaking once you get into the culture of pottery and you've been kind of indoctrinated and in the clay community for a while you will see that the the highest tiers of ceramic artists not even potters in general will generally not work with porcelain unless they're making something for pure function or selling on a production level most of the what i call capital a artists are working with their own clay bodies they manufacture to make themselves or they're working with a clay body that works very well for their specific medium or things of that nature not many high class artists are working purely with porcelain unless it is their niche and even then they're still kind of riding on the stereotype of people thinking porcelain is fancy to that extent the other side of that coin are people who are not in the pottery world at all and because of that they do things like collect old english pottery so when they start off with ceramic artwork or they want to dip their toe into the field of ceramic artwork they seem to gravitate towards porcelain because of course they have this in their homes you know they think this porcelain is fancy porcelain is high class porcelain is standard porcelains for the when the queen comes over okay now that we've gotten the three main categories out of the way with details to note let's go over what i would suggest for some of you potters right now now if you're someone who skipped specifically to this section because you didn't want to hear all the other explanations and what i had to say on that because i most likely left you a time stamp at the beginning of this episode congratulations you're not patient remember to click the like button because i was right and you're mad about it if you're looking for some standard low fire earthenware clay to practice with and you just kind of want to get your hands in clay you don't really want to make anything functional you're not looking to sell your work anytime soon you're not trying to make a business out of this go ahead and get yourself some steve's white steve's white is a fantastic low fire earthenware clay body no you cannot do it in your oven i get that question all the time because the temperature of 04 is still pretty high in comparison to regular conventional oven temperatures i don't know why i even have to address that it should be blatantly obvious steve's white is a fantastic clay body and as the name suggests it does fire out white but as i mentioned earlier in the video just because a clay body has a different color doesn't mean that it doesn't fire out a specific color or the color that you're looking for the color of the clay body the color of how it fires out and the color of how it looks when it's glazed are all three different colors if not shades on a general basis steve's white fantastic low fire clay body if you're just looking to practice maybe have some fun at home maybe you have your own kiln you bought a small little tiny kiln like i have a tester kiln over there very small one you just kind of want to get some practice in some steve's white is fantastic for the stoneware potters or people who are looking to get into the more production or sellable work or they want their clay bodies to be a little bit more functional or strong b mix or b mix with grog is a fantastic way to go i only say this because it's one of the few clays that i know of that have a grog and non-grog variation of it that meaning if you want to work with something that doesn't have grog in it a little bit more porcelainous you can definitely go the route of a non-grog b mix but if you want something a little bit more standard a bit more sturdy as you work with it you can go with the grog variation they both fire out to cone five and a little secret here i fire mine to come six it works out just fine i'll tell you what a lot of stoneware clay bodies will fire in the mid range that being in between like four and six and a lot of earthenware are usually low fire as i named earlier the higher the tier list you go usually the higher the temperature goes moving on to porcelain i would suggest probably a porcelain called dave's porcelain dave's porcelain is a very inexpensive version of porcelain and if you're trying to get your hands on it and you like the way it feels and you want a higher quality of it you can always move up to hoggy porcelain to coleman porcelain things of that nature but be warned dave's porcelain as far as i know is one of the cheaper porcelains on the market things like georgia coleman and hoggy porcelain are very expensive it's more expensive than gas so here's the thing coleman porcelain at my store right now goes like 27 a bag and a bag is about 25 pounds it's more than a dollar a pound okay that's technically if you compare the two more than a tank of gas for 50 pounds of clay just for me so keep in mind that if you want to experiment with porcelain and you want to get the higher tiers of porcelain the stuff that's a lot more quality a lot more creamy feels better on your hands i would suggest playing with some other clay first to see if you want to go that route that clay would be dave's porcelain for my suggestion because these porcelains over here they're expensive they're they're real expensive i don't know what they put in this clay it might be fairy tears i don't know i don't know where they're getting fairy tears but it better have fairy tears in it if it's going to be that expensive you know it's actually really funny because a lot of the clay bodies are named after the people that produce the recipe they sell them off to companies and then those companies in turn sell it back to the everyday person so dave's porcelain was made after a man named dave you know it's steve's white steve coleman porcelain tom coleman you know and a lot of other clay bodies that are manufactured straight from the company have like little code names to them so like like uh redstone it's called redstone but its code name or at least the name that it pulls up when it gives you the code is wc-420 but beemix is very special because beemix doesn't have these weird code names but it does have a different name it's not called like white stone it's not called stone white it's nothing like that there's there's nothing like that beemix is a b and then mix added to it that's because the last name of the person who made the formula to beemix his last name is butt yeah you heard me his last name is butt not like b-u-t like b-u-t-t like buttocks his his last name is butt and i know you don't believe me right now so i'm gonna leave a link below to verify that but i think the company realized they can't sell butt mix so so they call it beemix and there's a grog and non-grog version it is currently one of the most popular clay bodies in the world especially for stoneware users such as myself i have two bags in front of me i have like two red stones two aardvark somethings two experimental horse and clays and then like two bags of butt mix well thank you dirty potters for joining me today i know that was kind of a longer video but i get this question at least once every week and i wanted to make a time stamp to give you one generalized answer while also giving you a little bit of education about the three main categories that most clay bodies come into the the general answer though is that it kind of depends on what you need for your specific taste of artwork some of you are out there making earrings some of you are out there making pipes some of you out there making mugs and bowls some of you are sculptors some of you out there making bonsai plants so you know going a little not the plants but you know things bonsai go into you don't talk about don't look at me like that but all those things that i just named would be better suited for different types of clay body i can't suggest the same clay body for all facets of artwork so generally speaking if you're just getting started my recommendation would be a white or maybe even a red stoneware grog like clay so you can practice and get used to it after that you can kind of expand on your stuff but generally speaking if i were to get if somebody just wanted an answer right here and now it'd be be mixed with grog so that way you can mess with that you can then go to be with no grog see if you're going up the scale or maybe you want some more workability you can go down the scale of grog and call it a day at least that way we have a middle point from which to work from hopefully this video helped you out and if it did remember to click the like button um every single time you click the like button youtube actually gives me a cookie that's why i've been gaining weight recently thank you for your patronage nature wow it is getting really bright for some reason it was rainy like a second ago my guy that's not the indoor lights that's a whole sun that's that's the sun