Victoria Ahmed

Sorry for the late response I am using a two by two piece of sheetrock right now and am just wedging and rolling out. I have been attempting to shape right after rolling.

Thank you all. I appreciate the thoughts and advice. I will likely try everything suggested until I find something that remedies the issue. I have a good amount of clay to experiment with. It does still crack if you roll it into a slab right out of the bag, but not as severely. Maybe adding moisture to the slab prior to working with it would be ideal. I also need to use the clay I already have so I will try to work with it rather than switch brands or types right away. If nothing seems to remedy the cracking, I'm debating turning it into paper clay for non-functional work and just to be able to build anything. There's nothing more frustrating than finding out that every time you have enough time to sit down, it does not cooperate. Though I am sure it will not be the last time something goes wrong.....

So I'm in my last month of pregnancy with my third child and attempting to put all my muscles into wedging my clay (rams head wedging). Everything looks solid when I wedge. I use my wire tool to cut the clay and don't see air bubbles. I make a conscious effort to wedge smaller portions of clay and not be lazy about this. It's also brand new clay from a nearby art store. However when I roll out my clay, any attempt to bend it results in many cracks forming. The bigger the bend, the deeper the cracks. I'm assuming it's too dry, but I also want other opinions. I see a lot of information online about cracking when drying, but nothing about clay instantly cracking when you bend it. If you cannot tell, I'm absolutely new to this type of pottery. I grew up with greenware, bisque, pouring slip into molds, and we own kilns. This is new territory. How should I go about helping my clay not to crack? If it's a moisture issue, how can I bring more moisture to my clay?