which enables it to be worked without falling to pieces, and fineness—a perfect freedom from grit, small stones, and other impurities. It should be quite soft to the touch, and when pressed and kneaded should feel smooth and silky. Old clay is more plastic as well as being tougher than new, and in potteries clay is often kept a considerable time before it is used. The clay should not be allowed to dry when it is not in use, and to prevent this it must be wrapped in wet flannel. Should it dry quite hard, there is nothing to do but to put it into a vessel and pour water on it, allowing it to stand until the clay becomes soft. Some of the moisture must then be allowed to evaporate, otherwise it is too soft for use. This is another point to be observed in clay used for modelling. It must not be too damp. If it sticks to the fingers it is too wet, and if it resists the pressure of the fingers, too dry. The state between stickiness and stubbornness is what is wanted.

Now as to the tools. Wooden modelling tools can be purchased at some artists' colourmen, and also at some tool shops. You must choose those tools you think look handiest. A little practice will soon show you which are the best to have.

Each modeller has a predilection for certain tools, and it will take my readers very little time to find out which tools give the best results. I often shape those I buy myself to fit them for particular work. In addition to these wooden tools, it is necessary to have a fine steel one to work the clay when it is dry. Modelling tools are very inexpensive. You really require no other tools but these wooden ones and a steel one, but it is necessary to have a few boards to work your clay upon. They should be strong, with battens at the back to prevent them warping, which they are liable to do owing to the dampness of the clay.

We will start our work with a very simple design, for our aim should be to overcome the difficulties by degrees. The design I have chosen (fig. 1) was modelled as a tile about eight inches square, and the first thing to be done is to roll out a piece of clay about half an inch thick, and fairly flat all over. It is as well to work the clay up in one's hands, damping it occasionally if too dry. If clay be allowed to remain untouched for any length of time it gets set, and does not work easily; therefore, thoroughly work it up with the hands. It may be made into a ball, and can be rolled out flat with a thick ruler or rolling pin. The clay has a tendency to curl up round the rolling pin, and care must be taken to prevent this. If the rolling pin be covered with leather, this is to a great extent prevented. The design can be made on tracing paper, and by marking over the tracing paper placed over the clay with a hard point, an impression sufficiently distinct will be left to guide one in doing the actual modelling. The first thing is to build up the oranges, which can be done by sticking little pellets of clay on to the slab, pressing them down with the fingers, and rounding the oranges roughly into shape.

FIG. 1.—A TILE.

Our First Experiment.

Don't be too particular about this part of the work; be content to get some approximation to the shape, leaving the finishing to be done with the tools. Build up the stem in like manner, or you might roll out a thin piece of clay and stick this on to the slab. In sticking clay on to clay, it is always advisable to wet both the clay and the slab to ensure thorough adhesion, and in working the design into shape it is even a good plan to dip the fingers into water, as the extra moisture makes it easier to press the clay into the requisite shape.

The leaves can be modelled separately, and stuck on to the clay slab one by one. Do as much of the work as you can with the fingers. In modelling, the fingers are the best tools, after all. They do their work so much more expeditiously and effectively than the so-called "tools" do, and, depend upon it, the more the preliminary work is done with the fingers the better, as the use of the fingers tends towards boldness of design and vigour of execution. People, in starting a new employment, are very apt to be finiking owing to timidity, and this must be overcome from the outset—this tendency to pettiness—and in the case of modelling, the best way to overcome it is to do all the preliminary work with the fingers. Build up the design boldly and freely, studying only the principal masses and most important forms. When this is accomplished, let the clay stand a little time uncovered, as the use of water will have made it very sticky, and the modelling tools cannot be used as efficiently when the clay is in this state as when it is drier.

The modelling tools will enable you to begin to finish up the design, for at present the design exists only in its rough state. Pick the clay out of the interstices of the design, and begin to refine the different forms by putting in the more delicate curves. It very much depends upon the nature of the design as to how far in the direction of finish you carry the work, but as your modelled tile will not be exposed to rough usage, you may under-cut it, as modellers say. Under-cutting is the taking of the clay away from the back of the various forms. In the leaves, for instance, instead of leaving a solid mass of clay at the back, this should be carefully cut away underneath, or under-cut, so as to give lightness and delicacy to the work. Of course, it is necessary to leave some clay here and there to attach the various forms to the slab. The under-cutting may be carried to such a pitch as to make the design look weak, and as though it would fall to pieces with a puff of wind. When this is the case, I reckon the finishing has been carried too far. Clay should always look strong enough to hold together, and I may say I never thought much of that fancy china one sees which is covered with flowers and foliage modelled as delicately as though wrought in some precious metal. Sooner or later the edges get chipped off, and the charm of such work is immediately gone. Of course we know that an accident may destroy work that is not wrought in this delicate manner, but modelled clay should be delicate without being weak—it should at least look as though it could hold its own with fair usage.

Get as much of the work done as possible while the clay is plastic, and with a little practice a modelled design can be finished entirely while the clay is damp. In fact, the work is better when wrought from the plastic clay than when finished up with steel tools after the clay is dry. There is a certain crispness about the modelling when wrought from plastic clay, which is often wanting in work tooled up when the clay is hard. To my thinking, the best work is always that which looks as though it had been thrown off in a happy moment, and which has a certain number of the tool marks showing, as though the worker were not ashamed to let his craftsmanship be seen. Work which has been touch and retouched, and rubbed down and smoothed until all life, vigour, and crispness have departed from it, looks what it is, amateurish (in the worse sense) and weak.

I have had many opportunities of seeing amateurs work during the years I have been teaching, and I have noticed that they have a mistaken notion of what finish really is. It certainly does not consist in smoothing the work until it has the texture of a wax doll, and I have often noticed that work is often wholly spoilt in the so-called finishing.

In the subject I am dealing with—modelling in clay—this is particularly the case, and, reader, I pray