How To: Clay Whistle

We chose to make a whistle for our culminating. Its a fun and somewhat simple way to make an instrument, and express yourself creatively!

You will need:

• Clay
• Slip
• Knife
• Glaze (Optional)
• 2 equal length popsicle sticks
• a long thin object ( could be a pen, or the tip of a paintbrush)

To start the creation of the whistle, we need to create the half-sphere shape. We do this by using an essential skill in pottery: the pinch pot. A pinch pot is a quick and easy pot.

You start by taking a chunk of clay, and rolling it into a medium sized sphere. (You can do a larger or smaller sphere if you want a different sized whistle)

From there, dig your thumb's into the center of the ball, and smooth it out, trying to smooth it out into a curved, half sphere without a bottom.

To start the creation if the whistle, we need to create the bottom. To create the base, we need to make a slab. To make a slab, take a chunk of clay, and roll it into a large sphere.

Take the sphere of clay and slam it onto the table until you get a slab of clay. make sure you switch sides every time, keeping the angle of the slamming the same throughout. You want to stop when its thinner than your thumb, and thicker than your pinky. This is called The Rule of Thumb, and The Rule of Pinky.

Next you will need : Slip and a knife.

To combine the slab and the pinch pot you will need to score and slip. Use the knife and lightly graze the outside of the slab, but do it deep enough so that indents are present. Next repeat this with the pinch pot, but this time be extra careful in order to not cave the pot in. You want to get little spaces the slip can stick to; this helps ensure the the clay wont break off. Once you've completed this you can start with the slip.

Using the slip either take the knife or use your finger to lightly spread it out on the grooves that you made. Slip is like glue, it holds the two pieces together. If you end up firing your whistle and if you don't use slip, the pieces will fall apart and make a mess in the kiln, thus making it an essential step. Once both pieces are covered in slip, attach the two pieces and try to blend the clay together, this gets rid of the hard line from the two pieces, and helps ensure the clay sticks.

Grab a smaller chunk of clay and start shaping it into a cube. Remember it doesn't have to be perfect! if you cant get each side flat by doing it, then gently tap it on a flat surface.

Once again we are scoring and using slip on the clay. Score one side of the cube, and use a knife to mark a square on the whistle base, then add the score and attach each part. Attach the cube to the whistle, and blend it. This step is little more hard to blend, so if you need to, make a little coil or clay by rolling it out on a smooth surface. It should look like a little worm. Then you can use that to fill the gap between the cube and the whistle. Blend that out and it should look seamless!

Remember not to score to deep! If you do, don't worry you can just add little bits of clay and smooth it out.

For this step you're going to need popsicle sticks that's are the same length. What you want to do is insert one popsicle stick through the middle of the cube. Make sure that the popsicle stick doesn't go through the slab, so make sure that your popsicle stick isn't puncturing anything other that the cube. Leave that popsicle stick in and flip the whistle over.

Next you're going to align the other popsicle stick with the one that punctured the whistle. You will need the knife for this; Mark a rectangle where the popsicle stick that ISNT in the clay meets the other (you'll have to double check to see if its lined up). Use a knife or a small tool to dig out the excess clay from the rectangle. Dig it out until the rectangle you marked is hollow.

DONT take the popsicle stick out of the whistle.

After hollowing out the rectangular hole, grab the other popsicle stick (that isn't in the whistle) and press gently on the opposite side of the hole to the cube. Once you've pressed hard enough you should have created a slant on the opposite side. This technique is called Beveling.

Remove the popsicle stick from the inside.

See picture above for reference of bevel

If you have done this properly than your whistle should be functional! Blow in through the hole in the middle of the cube. You should have something that sounds like this:

This step is optional. so essentially if you want to you can fire your whistle in the kiln, which in turn bakes the clay and makes the whistle safe for continuous use.

If you want to take your whistle a step further than you can glaze it! Glazing is essentially just adding color and sealing all the cracks. This step is completely optional. After this you will need to fire it in the kiln again.

And now your done!