I hope you can find the color of clay you are looking for. Here is a whole playlist of my content on the subject of natural slips and paints for decorating pottery th-cam.com/video/T43SPssR1VI/w-d-xo.html
Im only just starting out. Since its winter I have been firing things in my wood stove even though I have central air. It keeps my heating cost down and its something to do. I don know how I will fire in the city when it starts getting warmer. Thats how new I am to this. Your channel is the first one I found on potting. I have also been looking around at other channels. Your channel is by FAR the best one I have found yet. Very informative and to the point. I dont think I could have got into this hobby without your channel. Thank you.
Your videos have filled me with excitement for the spring when I can go out and harvest some local clay in my city. I'm going to try to make a completely locally constructed "tea pet" from the clay by the river
After shelf drying ,Iv been having good results leaving my greenware in my oven for weeks with oven use ( for food ) using the heat to keep them dry until I fire. Non consecutive hours of heatings to drive out moisture , plus a pre fire heating before wood firing. If learned 90% just here. Thanks.
I've watched hundreds of your videos and taken ok notes. Found brown and grey clay on my land, processed it, built a kiln out of bricks and blocks I also found on my land. 1 of the 8 pieces did not break. I call that a first timers success. Thank you for the info and inspiration! Texoma, TX
Another very interesting and informative video. I like the pookie as a color palette. For myself I'd be taking pictures before and after firing for future reference 😊
Andy, Thank you for your reply. It went into my junk folder, so I didn’t even know you had responded until I saw you talk about it on today’s video. 😊🤣 Love your stuff and will sign up for your class in the near future when my life settles down a bit. Ted
Very great video once again! We have a blue-ish clay and a maroon colored clay that both fire to a buff color (they also have terrible building quality)! Lol! Some good colors of clay are just too hard to come by... We just use mostly mineral based paints if we want color.
What an amazing demonstration! So fascinating. I'd love to get into this sort of low-tech pottery making but I have nowhere to put a little coal fire. I might still go out looking for clays in my city though.
I like the way you name the clays, very useful way of classifying them I have just started the journey and fired a couple of pieces of clay from my garden...It went quite well, I used ash as a temper which worked well for one and not the other but they had very different amounts of temper....what I don't have yet is variation of colour unless I can find a decent amount of what is definitely Snowdonia mountain clay as its the same colour as the rocks in the mountains about 35miles away but its in pockets spread around the garden. thankyou for sharing these great videos
Great video! Love these experiment type videos. Have you ever considered trying to make a traditional salt glaze before? Where salt is applied during the firing process itself?
It's like you read my mind. I was wondering how the clay in my area might look fired. I have gray, yellow, and red for sure. Thanks for such a great video!
That was a nice experiment! I'm looking at using some of my local wild clays more as slips for their color variations than body clays. I'm wondering how much of a difference firing temperature makes in those colors?
I have found that the colors are going to be pretty much the same in that 700 - 900 range I am looking for. Much more important is the atmosphere, good clean burn with minimal smoke and abundant oxygen will result in nice, bright colors.
Really loved this episode! As always, you have such vast, incredible knowledge, and you're able to share it in a way that ding dong newbies like my family (all adults now!) and I can understand and (attempt to) recreate. We have a loooong way to go, but we're getting there, baby step by baby step. We're pretty good at getting ridiculously muddy and clay-y from head to toe anyway, and we LOVE it!! Wanted to ask you: do you know if there will be a Southwest Kiln Conference this year? I didn't see any mention of it on the conference's website, but my guess is that it's hard to keep up with the site when everyone has so much else going on. We're bummed we missed the 2022 one, so fingers crossed for 2023. Thank you SO much, and keep on being awesome!!
Thanks! No conference has been scheduled for this year yet as far as I know. I am planning a potters gathering at my property in southeastern Arizona in March ancientpottery.how/southwestern-potters-gathering/
Thanks for these video's! You and other channels really helped my with information about wild clays and how to work them. I found clay right outside my school and managed to get it nice and pure using your methods, i fired samples at school in an electric kiln at 1080c° and they held up beautiful! I am waiting for better weather to try to fire them in my backyard, i am curious how much difference there will be between works from the same clay fired in different ways. In my project i also tried different methods of colouring and although it is not ancient or "wild" i have found that if you find old red bricks and heat them up in a fire you can grind it easily and quite fine, after adding a little clay and turning into a slib you have a nice soft red that you can use on pottery, depending on what clay and how much of it you add you can turn it into a soft pink or a warm coppery yellow if you add yellow firing clay. Especially in Europe i think you find old bricks quite frequently when used to fill in unpaved roads so it can be found quite easily. A bit more of a modern day gatherer approach of the urban person. It is not gonna fire as bright red as pure iron containing clay but in some countries that can be almost impossible to be found in the wild, because of geography or because of urbanization (my country the Netherlands is sometimes seen as 1 big city by people from other countries).
Nice, thanks for sharing this story and tips. As long as you are using found objects in urban areas, try rust in the same way you have used bricks, you will likely find it produces a redder red than bricks. Also those ground bricks would make great temper for your clay. Keep up the good work!
Very interesting changes in colour there, I hope I had your magnificent clays! What about their plasticity? I find that red clays are usually fat, while white and grey ones are not, or rather that those quarried deeper are plastic (perhaps due to compression), while those quarried closer to the surface are weak. But this is only based on my small experience of Greek, Swedish and Hungarian clays (much less impressive then how it sounds).
I generally don't test the plasticity of clays I collect far from home, I only want building clays from close to home. So most of these have never been tested for working properties.
Hi Andy can you make a video at some point about European ancient pottery? Just like you, I prefer technics that were used locally. The only difference... I live in Europe, so ...
Hi Andy! Amazing video, I have a question. I'm currently colouring my pottery creations (mostly mugs) and the color keeps coming off even after many layers I put , why is that?
When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave. Yes it is on the map, I can't believe you don't have some of it already.
@@AncientPottery Oh great Master Andrew-San, we didn't have time to hit all the marks on our clay digging tour. And we didn't know then how red that fired up-- better than the four red types I already have, so we wants it my precious. Next Arizona trip we're gettin' it.
Andy you make great content, I've never done pottery before so I have a dumb question. I want to make a natural pot like this and then use it for plants. so it will be outside and consistently moist. Will this style of pot work? do I need to use a glaze? is there a natural glazing method besides ash glazes? maybe can you make a cactus pot or something in a future video?
Sure, it can work great for plants. The one caveat is that it will need to be protected from frosts which can destroy the pot as the moisture in the pot freezes.
So I'm wet processing a light reddish orange clay that I mixed up with water about 12 hours ago. As I started mixing, it turned into a light brown which I'm assuming the soil had a lot to do with it. I tried separating the soil from the clay but it was kinda difficult considering the soft clay was down deep into the soil. As of now, the water has not separated from the clay after filtering the clay into three 12in diameter plastic containers. The conditions here in Northern California are a high 54/34 low. Any suggestions on separating the water? I remember you mentioning using vinegar to help with the separation. Plus, it was above 100F degrees when you created the video.
You have to pour off the stirred messy water which includes the clay and throw away the sand remaining at the bottom. Then wait for the clay to settle for one day. If the water is still messy, don't worry most of the clay is at the bottom. You can take the excess water off with a cup or by a tube like they do for transferring vine. The remaining water will dry out in one or two days max.
@@AncientPottery That seems to be a topic in itself. I have one red clay that settles quite well when I begin levigating it, but it seems to have a lot of soluble salts in it. The more often I rinse it, the longer it takes to settle, until eventually the water never clarifies at all. I'm assuming some of those salts are natural deflocculants. I guess a little salt isn't such a bad thing.
@@petrapetrakoliou8979 I believe I filtered the impurities pretty well with two very fine mesh screens, just waiting for the separation. Thanks for the tip on using the cup to remove the water. 👍
the yellow looks the most red. I went looking for clay and found a few different ones but I found some yellow i still need to try firing some pottery I tried one in the fire place and it exploded which turned me off of doing it inside until im used to it. Probably not dry enough I guess still learning
Electric kilns are excellent for achieving an oxidizing atmosphere as there are no reduction gasses produced by combustion. I'm sure the colors would be comparable as long as you didn't fire too high.
@@AncientPottery sure is brother. I may have to send it to you hahaha. I was gonna make adobo structures for my animals and get some practice in but if I can make pottery I'ma be in heaven.
Hi andy, last night I got the second firing outdoor. The first one was terrible but I watched you videos many times and for the second chance I got perfect fired pieces and smoked. thanks a lot !
Have you ever heard of serpentinite soils being used as clay? I live near some ancient Pacific ophiolite zones where serpentinite rocks are very common and the serpentine soils that go along with them, and there are some "badlands" topography with serpentine soils composed of clay-sized particles. A local geologist did a write-up and referred to one such patch of serpentine soil as "clay". I've never heard of serpentine soil being used as a clay, but it would be interesting to see if it fires and sinters into a ceramic form and what color it might fire to. Our serpentine soils are generally a creamy greenish blue, and probably bad to breathe if gathered in dry powdered form, given that chrysotile asbestos commonly occurs with our varieties of serpentinite. Also, what is the science behind clays that fire to a different hue/tone than their original, unfired form? I can't seem to find much info online about that. I'm going to guess that naturally occurring iron in the clay oxidizes upon being exposed to the great heat of firing. One last thing. It's said that once clay is fired, it cannot ever be reverted back to its original form where it can be broken down, pulverized into a fine powder and made back into workable/fireable clay (essentially recycling it). That doesn't make a lot of sense to me because clay particles originate from igneous rock which were originally heated to temperatures even beyond that of firing. In a sense, the clay particles were already fired and sintered/vitrified by the time they reached the Earth's crust. Yet it's virgin clay and the process of the silica crystals binding under the firing process happens.
@@AncientPottery Yes, so basically serpentine soil is just ground up serpentine rock; rock that's broken down and weathered into small soil particles. But I'm thinking it might be unsuitable as "clay" due to it being ultramafic and very low in silica and aluminosilicate minerals (feldspars). Would still make for an interesting test fire to see what happens.
Hey andy I'm back at sourcing wild clay. Any tips for distinguishing between usable clay/mudrock? I'm a couple feet down on the side of a small river bank. Looks like it has some "shale" weathering or whatever, definitely some horizontal layers. It comes out in big irregular shaped blocks and is brownish and will break along horizontal faults. I'm on the eastern Olympic national peninsula in Washington so I figure its glacial but cant figure out how to tell the difference between clay and mud stones. I'm working on drying it and then wet processing it. Not warm enough to dry unfortunately
That sounds pretty cool, I would love to hunt clay on the Olympic Peninsula. If it were me I would just throw it in a bucket of water for a couple days to see if it will slake down. If not you still might be able to dry and grind it into clay. I don't know of a better way to know in the field. I have dealt with similar material here in Arizona, sometimes what used to be clay will just never be again and sometimes it will easily become clay again.
@@AncientPottery thanks for the response! That's what I did. Some of it was so hard, almost too hard to break by hand unless at the right angle, but it looked really similar in color to the rest and with quite a bit of effort ground down and looked like "clay". Super weird. Looked and felt like clay when wet. I have it in water now, a little colder than I'd like. Seems to be slaking? I'm itching to try pitfiring again!
nice video mate, I have a question that left me scratching my head, I am using red clay to make some clay bricks but for some reason they fire into different shades of yellow , I want to preserve the red color but I dont know how can you help me with that please?
![ILLSLICK - WINTER IS COMING [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dwTMeM1zIhQ/mqdefault.jpg)
I hope you can find the color of clay you are looking for. Here is a whole playlist of my content on the subject of natural slips and paints for decorating pottery th-cam.com/video/T43SPssR1VI/w-d-xo.html
Im only just starting out. Since its winter I have been firing things in my wood stove even though I have central air. It keeps my heating cost down and its something to do. I don know how I will fire in the city when it starts getting warmer. Thats how new I am to this. Your channel is the first one I found on potting. I have also been looking around at other channels. Your channel is by FAR the best one I have found yet. Very informative and to the point. I dont think I could have got into this hobby without your channel. Thank you.
Have you used wild purple clay
That’s really fascinating and an excellent visual presentation.
Thank you
Your videos have filled me with excitement for the spring when I can go out and harvest some local clay in my city. I'm going to try to make a completely locally constructed "tea pet" from the clay by the river
That's great, fun project
After shelf drying ,Iv been having good results leaving my greenware in my oven for weeks with oven use ( for food ) using the heat to keep them dry until I fire. Non consecutive hours of heatings to drive out moisture , plus a pre fire heating before wood firing. If learned 90% just here. Thanks.
Wow, you are overthinking this. A half hour in the oven right before firing will do the trick I assure you.
I've watched hundreds of your videos and taken ok notes. Found brown and grey clay on my land, processed it, built a kiln out of bricks and blocks I also found on my land. 1 of the 8 pieces did not break. I call that a first timers success. Thank you for the info and inspiration! Texoma, TX
Your welcome. Glad you are getting value from my videos. I’ve been to Lake Texoma are you near there?
@@AncientPottery I am very near. 5 min away
@@JesseALwood Cool, I used to live in Ada, OK and went there a few times. I also made a website for a marina on the lake.
@@AncientPottery cool! Does that Oklahoma red dirt make good red clay? I've been wanting to go up there and find some
Mellow yellow!! Wow.. Been on a long search over here just to find one that fires like those.. Great selection and info..
Thanks 👍 Keep at it, you are doing great
Another very interesting and informative video. I like the pookie as a color palette. For myself I'd be taking pictures before and after firing for future reference 😊
Good idea, thanks
Thank you Andy for this wonderful demonstration.
You are very welcome
Excellent video, as usual! Your passion for your skill-craft never ceases to amaze me.
This seems like a wonderful science experiment for a school project.
Yes this would be a fun project for kids.
i make "studio pottery" stoneware but i love following and watching your videos, keep um coming
Thank you! 😊
Andy,
Thank you for your reply. It went into my junk folder, so I didn’t even know you had responded until I saw you talk about it on today’s video. 😊🤣
Love your stuff and will sign up for your class in the near future when my life settles down a bit.
Ted
LOL. Funny that the first response you saw was in the video. Thanks for helping me make good content.
Learn so much from the clay sage on the daily🙏
Thanks
A great video with lots of information ! And a very scientific approach on presenting it ! Thank you very much.
Glad you liked it
Great experiment! Absolutely fascinating. Thanks again Andy for sharing your vast knowledge. Your YT videos are such a valuable resource to me!
My pleasure!
Great video Andy! Real cool and informative, thanks for taking the time to put this together!
Glad you enjoyed it!
First one here :) thanks for making such helpful content. You have inspired me to make pottery myself. Thank you Andy
That's awesome!
Very great video once again! We have a blue-ish clay and a maroon colored clay that both fire to a buff color (they also have terrible building quality)! Lol! Some good colors of clay are just too hard to come by... We just use mostly mineral based paints if we want color.
You live in a great area for finding amazing clay colors.
What an amazing demonstration! So fascinating. I'd love to get into this sort of low-tech pottery making but I have nowhere to put a little coal fire. I might still go out looking for clays in my city though.
You can do it!
I have black clay right in my backyard. Live about a mile away from a river, in Connecticut. Can't wait to check it out
Very informative! It's so encouraging to know that we can often work with what we have access to.
Absolutely!
I have become facilitated by your channel and wild clay! Hoping to explore wild clay here in Ohio when the weather is more dry.
Wonderful!
Love your videos! Central-west Brazil greetings 🙌🏾
Awesome! Thank you!
New to your channel. I had to chuckle @ Urban Anasazi... I'm big into 2nd hand thrifting: I call it my Urban Hunting.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks. Yeah, I think a big part of an idea's success or failure comes to catchy names and Tony really hit it out of the park with "Urban Anasazi".
Great info. Nice demonstration. Very cool guitar music. Thank you.
Thanks
You're a gem!
Thank you
So cool, I love the soft peachy-yellows (on my monitor). Thanks.
Super excellent as per usual. Wonderful subject and wonderfully done.
Thanks!
I like the way you name the clays, very useful way of classifying them
I have just started the journey and fired a couple of pieces of clay from my garden...It went quite well, I used ash as a temper which worked well for one and not the other but they had very different amounts of temper....what I don't have yet is variation of colour unless I can find a decent amount of what is definitely Snowdonia mountain clay as its the same colour as the rocks in the mountains about 35miles away but its in pockets spread around the garden.
thankyou for sharing these great videos
👍👍👍👍👍 - What a great demonstration. Thx
You are welcome!
Great video! Love these experiment type videos.
Have you ever considered trying to make a traditional salt glaze before? Where salt is applied during the firing process itself?
Thanks. No, I don't think that would work without a kiln to contain the atmosphere
I’ve been looking for something like this. Thank you 🙏
Glad I could help
Ive found some deposits of grey blue clay in Florida. Im excited to see how it will turn out
It's like you read my mind. I was wondering how the clay in my area might look fired. I have gray, yellow, and red for sure. Thanks for such a great video!
Glad to be able to help. I chose the subject based on a lot of comments and messages so apparently a lot of people have been thinking the same.
Love this video. Im going to do this too. I can use the pukis I made the other day from copying Airstream Wanderings. I am such a copy cat. 😀
That's how we learn. Thanks
Great video!
Thanks!
That was a nice experiment! I'm looking at using some of my local wild clays more as slips for their color variations than body clays. I'm wondering how much of a difference firing temperature makes in those colors?
I have found that the colors are going to be pretty much the same in that 700 - 900 range I am looking for. Much more important is the atmosphere, good clean burn with minimal smoke and abundant oxygen will result in nice, bright colors.
Really loved this episode! As always, you have such vast, incredible knowledge, and you're able to share it in a way that ding dong newbies like my family (all adults now!) and I can understand and (attempt to) recreate. We have a loooong way to go, but we're getting there, baby step by baby step. We're pretty good at getting ridiculously muddy and clay-y from head to toe anyway, and we LOVE it!!
Wanted to ask you: do you know if there will be a Southwest Kiln Conference this year? I didn't see any mention of it on the conference's website, but my guess is that it's hard to keep up with the site when everyone has so much else going on. We're bummed we missed the 2022 one, so fingers crossed for 2023. Thank you SO much, and keep on being awesome!!
Thanks! No conference has been scheduled for this year yet as far as I know. I am planning a potters gathering at my property in southeastern Arizona in March ancientpottery.how/southwestern-potters-gathering/
Thanks for these video's! You and other channels really helped my with information about wild clays and how to work them. I found clay right outside my school and managed to get it nice and pure using your methods, i fired samples at school in an electric kiln at 1080c° and they held up beautiful! I am waiting for better weather to try to fire them in my backyard, i am curious how much difference there will be between works from the same clay fired in different ways.
In my project i also tried different methods of colouring and although it is not ancient or "wild" i have found that if you find old red bricks and heat them up in a fire you can grind it easily and quite fine, after adding a little clay and turning into a slib you have a nice soft red that you can use on pottery, depending on what clay and how much of it you add you can turn it into a soft pink or a warm coppery yellow if you add yellow firing clay.
Especially in Europe i think you find old bricks quite frequently when used to fill in unpaved roads so it can be found quite easily.
A bit more of a modern day gatherer approach of the urban person.
It is not gonna fire as bright red as pure iron containing clay but in some countries that can be almost impossible to be found in the wild, because of geography or because of urbanization (my country the Netherlands is sometimes seen as 1 big city by people from other countries).
Nice, thanks for sharing this story and tips. As long as you are using found objects in urban areas, try rust in the same way you have used bricks, you will likely find it produces a redder red than bricks. Also those ground bricks would make great temper for your clay. Keep up the good work!
@@AncientPottery defenitly gonna try that! Thanks!
Very interesting changes in colour there, I hope I had your magnificent clays! What about their plasticity? I find that red clays are usually fat, while white and grey ones are not, or rather that those quarried deeper are plastic (perhaps due to compression), while those quarried closer to the surface are weak. But this is only based on my small experience of Greek, Swedish and Hungarian clays (much less impressive then how it sounds).
I generally don't test the plasticity of clays I collect far from home, I only want building clays from close to home. So most of these have never been tested for working properties.
So slips 3&5 were smectite clays? I noticed the organic paint showed well on them.
Also, what did you use for the paint?
Thank you for another lesson!
Yes, but I can't remember what paint I used, it was probably mesquite bean paint.
Hi Andy can you make a video at some point about European ancient pottery? Just like you, I prefer technics that were used locally. The only difference... I live in Europe, so ...
Maybe, I just don't know much about it. Have you seen @PottedHistory
Very interesting! Do you know what color blue clay usually fires to?
I wish I could have included some blue clay but it is quite rare around here and I don't have any in my collection.
AMAZING ❤
Hi Andy! Amazing video, I have a question. I'm currently colouring my pottery creations (mostly mugs) and the color keeps coming off even after many layers I put , why is that?
No idea. Have you tried polishing those colors like I do in this video?
@@AncientPottery apparently I didn't know that I was supposed to mix glaze with colours to make it stick to the creations, thank you again!
Very cool. I'm never done learning from you. I want some of that Mogollon Rim yellow-to-red. Wow. Got coordinates?
When you can snatch the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave. Yes it is on the map, I can't believe you don't have some of it already.
@@AncientPottery Oh great Master Andrew-San, we didn't have time to hit all the marks on our clay digging tour. And we didn't know then how red that fired up-- better than the four red types I already have, so we wants it my precious. Next Arizona trip we're gettin' it.
Andy you make great content, I've never done pottery before so I have a dumb question. I want to make a natural pot like this and then use it for plants. so it will be outside and consistently moist. Will this style of pot work? do I need to use a glaze? is there a natural glazing method besides ash glazes? maybe can you make a cactus pot or something in a future video?
Sure, it can work great for plants. The one caveat is that it will need to be protected from frosts which can destroy the pot as the moisture in the pot freezes.
@@AncientPottery OK thanks that's good to know. thanks for the reply
Hmm....wondering how the Copper/Salt paint came out???? Great video....
I'll post that in a day or two, sorry I should have shown that but was too excited about the colors.
Thank you
You're welcome
So I'm wet processing a light reddish orange clay that I mixed up with water about 12 hours ago. As I started mixing, it turned into a light brown which I'm assuming the soil had a lot to do with it. I tried separating the soil from the clay but it was kinda difficult considering the soft clay was down deep into the soil. As of now, the water has not separated from the clay after filtering the clay into three 12in diameter plastic containers. The conditions here in Northern California are a high 54/34 low. Any suggestions on separating the water? I remember you mentioning using vinegar to help with the separation. Plus, it was above 100F degrees when you created the video.
Some clays just will not settle. You need a deflocculant. Check out this article digitalfire.com/article/deflocculants%3A+a+detailed+overview
You have to pour off the stirred messy water which includes the clay and throw away the sand remaining at the bottom. Then wait for the clay to settle for one day. If the water is still messy, don't worry most of the clay is at the bottom. You can take the excess water off with a cup or by a tube like they do for transferring vine. The remaining water will dry out in one or two days max.
@@AncientPottery That seems to be a topic in itself. I have one red clay that settles quite well when I begin levigating it, but it seems to have a lot of soluble salts in it. The more often I rinse it, the longer it takes to settle, until eventually the water never clarifies at all. I'm assuming some of those salts are natural deflocculants. I guess a little salt isn't such a bad thing.
@@AncientPottery Awesome! Thank you👍
@@petrapetrakoliou8979 I believe I filtered the impurities pretty well with two very fine mesh screens, just waiting for the separation. Thanks for the tip on using the cup to remove the water. 👍
the yellow looks the most red. I went looking for clay and found a few different ones but I found some yellow i still need to try firing some pottery I tried one in the fire place and it exploded which turned me off of doing it inside until im used to it. Probably not dry enough I guess still learning
Would be interesting to see a piece made with the same clays and fired in an electric kiln for comparison.
Electric kilns are excellent for achieving an oxidizing atmosphere as there are no reduction gasses produced by combustion. I'm sure the colors would be comparable as long as you didn't fire too high.
Is there a way to remove the iron in the clay so it fires whiter? Thx for the vid!
Not that I know of, thanks
Our Pecan Gap TX clay makes beautiful light grey and dark grey when wet. Wonder if it's white when fired.
Only one way to find out.
@@AncientPottery sure is brother. I may have to send it to you hahaha. I was gonna make adobo structures for my animals and get some practice in but if I can make pottery I'ma be in heaven.
I came here from your yellow and green clay search vid.
Welcome
Hi andy, last night I got the second firing outdoor. The first one was terrible but I watched you videos many times and for the second chance I got perfect fired pieces and smoked. thanks a lot !
That's great, keep at it.
Whoa!!! Andy said Fahrenheit!!!!
Ha ha, well my oven works in F and my infrared thermometer works in C
Have you ever heard of serpentinite soils being used as clay? I live near some ancient Pacific ophiolite zones where serpentinite rocks are very common and the serpentine soils that go along with them, and there are some "badlands" topography with serpentine soils composed of clay-sized particles. A local geologist did a write-up and referred to one such patch of serpentine soil as "clay". I've never heard of serpentine soil being used as a clay, but it would be interesting to see if it fires and sinters into a ceramic form and what color it might fire to. Our serpentine soils are generally a creamy greenish blue, and probably bad to breathe if gathered in dry powdered form, given that chrysotile asbestos commonly occurs with our varieties of serpentinite.
Also, what is the science behind clays that fire to a different hue/tone than their original, unfired form? I can't seem to find much info online about that. I'm going to guess that naturally occurring iron in the clay oxidizes upon being exposed to the great heat of firing.
One last thing. It's said that once clay is fired, it cannot ever be reverted back to its original form where it can be broken down, pulverized into a fine powder and made back into workable/fireable clay (essentially recycling it). That doesn't make a lot of sense to me because clay particles originate from igneous rock which were originally heated to temperatures even beyond that of firing. In a sense, the clay particles were already fired and sintered/vitrified by the time they reached the Earth's crust. Yet it's virgin clay and the process of the silica crystals binding under the firing process happens.
I am familiar with serpentine but not serpentine soils so no idea. very interesting.
@@AncientPottery Yes, so basically serpentine soil is just ground up serpentine rock; rock that's broken down and weathered into small soil particles. But I'm thinking it might be unsuitable as "clay" due to it being ultramafic and very low in silica and aluminosilicate minerals (feldspars). Would still make for an interesting test fire to see what happens.
I just made the initial shape of the hohokam burden basket pot, i must find white clay now
Use what you have available.
Hey andy I'm back at sourcing wild clay. Any tips for distinguishing between usable clay/mudrock? I'm a couple feet down on the side of a small river bank. Looks like it has some "shale" weathering or whatever, definitely some horizontal layers. It comes out in big irregular shaped blocks and is brownish and will break along horizontal faults. I'm on the eastern Olympic national peninsula in Washington so I figure its glacial but cant figure out how to tell the difference between clay and mud stones. I'm working on drying it and then wet processing it. Not warm enough to dry unfortunately
That sounds pretty cool, I would love to hunt clay on the Olympic Peninsula. If it were me I would just throw it in a bucket of water for a couple days to see if it will slake down. If not you still might be able to dry and grind it into clay. I don't know of a better way to know in the field. I have dealt with similar material here in Arizona, sometimes what used to be clay will just never be again and sometimes it will easily become clay again.
@@AncientPottery thanks for the response! That's what I did. Some of it was so hard, almost too hard to break by hand unless at the right angle, but it looked really similar in color to the rest and with quite a bit of effort ground down and looked like "clay". Super weird. Looked and felt like clay when wet. I have it in water now, a little colder than I'd like. Seems to be slaking? I'm itching to try pitfiring again!
It's always a mystery when I use clay.
I found a source of clay that brown/red when unfired, but when it's fired it's a pale white color.
What about illinois blue clay?
We don't have that here in Arizona
😎 👍🏼
So basically it's not very predictable until you try it
nice video mate, I have a question that left me scratching my head, I am using red clay to make some clay bricks but for some reason they fire into different shades of yellow , I want to preserve the red color but I dont know how can you help me with that please?
It's your firing atmosphere, you need more oxygen
thanku so much