Story of The Goblin Earring Holder

Hi guys! I wanted to share my process when making my Goblin Earring Holder.

In my high school ceramics class, we were tasked with creating a gnome. At the time, I really wanted to make a goblin. So I had the idea of creating a clown goblin gnome. When I added the ears, I realized I had the potential to make my project functional. Unfortunately, the glaze entered the earring holes, and thus I was set on a mission. I wanted to create an earring holding goblin.

I wasn’t able to execute this plan in my ceramics class, and sadly, I do not own a kiln. So, I turned to air-dry clay. At the time, I wasn’t very confident in my abilities, so I chose to just make the head. This attempt was a functional earring holder, but it was too short to work as efficiently as I hoped. It had also been a long time since I worked with clay, so it came out a little lopsided.

This led to my final attempt at the Goblin Earring Holder we know and love today. I began like most projects by creating a sketch and thinking about the logistics of the project. When working with clay, it’s important to consider how thick your project is. Too thin it can break easily; too thick, and it won’t dry properly. So to avoid creating a giant clay glob, I created a tin foil skeleton. I grabbed a bunch of tin foil, created a ball shape for the head, then created a more oval shape for the body, slamming against the table to create a flat bottom. After that, I was ready to work with clay. When working with clay, you start by wedging the clay to remove any air bubbles and mixing the clay together. It’s also important if you want to add water to soften the clay. I then created 2 pinch pots and shaped them around the tin foil ball slipping and scoring the 2 pinch pots together to complete cover the head. I repeated this process for the body. I set these aside to dry a bit and began working on the limbs. I created 4 coils and cut them to fit my needed size. I attached them to the body. I then created 4 small squares 2 of them became the hands and 2 became the feet. I took the 2 hands and cut the very top of them into 4 equal sections to form the fingers. I then shaped the 2 squares meant for the feet to resemble shoes. After that, the head was attached to the body. I formed 2 acute triangles and attached them to the side of the head. I really struggled to keep these attached, so I shoved 2 toothpicks to the side of the head to support the ears. I let the ears dry a bit, then used a needle tool to add the earring holes.