Create a piggy bank with air drying clay

How to make a cute little piggy bank with Air Hardening Modelling Clay

Step 1: Making a Ball.

The first thing we need to do is to join the two slabs of clay together. Slap them together as hard as you can to make sure they stick and then roll the clay into a ball. Smooth your ball with a little water.

Step 2: Hollowing out the Ball.

Place your Clay ball on a flat surface and use the Wire Clay Cutter from the Pottery Tool Kit, to cut the ball in half. Then remove some clay from the inside of each ball with the large Ribbon Tool, leaving a wall thickness of approximately 1 cm.

Step 3: Re-joining the Ball.

Re-join the two halves of the ball making sure the edges align. Then wrap a 30 cm long ribbon of clay approximately 1 cm wide around the join, smooth it into the ball with a flat ended Mini Modelling Tool. Dip your fingers into some water and smooth the entire ball with your hands.

Step 4: Making the piggy features.

Create 7 balls with a 3 cm diameter and 3 balls with a 1 cm diameter. Make four of the 3cm balls into cone shapes, these will be the legs. Now squash two balls flat and cut a triangle from each one using the metal scraper, these will be piggy’s ears. For the snout make an elliptical cylinder and finally roll a thin sausage 5 mm thick and 8 cm long for piggy’s tail.

Step 5: Attaching features and cutting.

Dampen each cone at the base point and join the legs to the body and smooth them in. Then attach the ears, snout, tail and the eyes the same way. Now cut a coin slot using the knife in the top of the piggy and smooth. Make sure you have adult supervision when using the Fettling knife. Leave your piggy to dry before moving to the next step.

Step 6: Painting the Piggy.

In the deep well plastic pallet, create a pink from 4 parts White and 1 part Scarlet. Paint the entire pig leaving the eyes free of paint. When the Pink is dry, paint some Burnt Umber mud on to the feet and any other areas you like. Then paint the eyes white with black dots in the middle. Once dry you can then go over the entire pig with Gloss Medium.

Step 7: Filling your Piggy Bank.

This is probably the hardest part of the project, but the best way to get money to fill your piggy bank is to do little jobs around the house to help Mum and Dad. Pretty soon your Piggy bank will be overflowing. You could even make different animal banks!