Brush strokes is the art of creating pictures and patterns with simple strokes of the paint brush. Every type of brush, will create its own unique footprint on your canvas, be it paper, fabric, or ceramic. Consider your piece of ceramic bisque as a piece of oil canvas. It does not matter what the base is, what you do with it becomes the work of art.

Learning how to load your brushes will aid you in creating the perfect brush strokes. You should never try to load color into a dry brush. Your brush is like a fountain pen and it needs the paint to be of the right consistency in order to flow freely. Beginning with a wet brush adds to this ability. For water based colors you will use water to dampen the bristles. When using mineral spirit or oil based paints, you will dampen the brush with mineral spirits or other solvents. When using china paints, you will use appropriate oils.

Once you know the basics of how to make what kind of strokes with what kind of brushes, you open up a whole world of artistic creation. Experiment with your brushes. Hold them at different angles, apply different amounts of pressure on them. Try using more or less color and water/solvent to see the different effects you get. Practice practice practice. You cannot get too much practice as you explore your brushes and what you can create with them.

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In a nutshell, greenware is raw clay. Clay that has not been fired or ‘baked’. Potters throw pots and until they are fired, they are greenware. It does not matter if an item has been sculpted by hand, cast with a mold, earthenware, porcelain, stoneware or any other form of clay, until it is fired it is raw or greenware.

While in the unfired state, it can be broken quite easily. Most fragile is cast porcelain, then cast earthenware, then sculpted bodies.  This is primarily because of the density and thickness of the item as well as the fragility of the clay body.

When handling raw clay ware, it is important that you support the bottom rather than trying to pick it up from the top as the weight causes stress and can cause the piece to snap and or crumble.

In its raw form, most clays can be crushed and recycled; however once fired, they cannot. There are two major differences between clay bodies - Low-fire and high-fire. Low-fire clays are those that require lower temperatures to reach maturity as opposed to those which require higher temperatures.

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