Y is for YouTube (AtoZ 2016)

Although I read a few books that described the tools and the techniques for working with metal clay, the most useful tutorial was this YouTube video.

It’s long, but comprehensive; it walks you through the entire process, from rolling out the clay to firing it and polishing it and gives you a few hints along the way. I can’t say exactly what it is about the video that works so well, but I’ve gone back to it time and time again. For the longest time I had the time mark for firing memorized because I kept forgetting how long to fire for! Now I’ve done it often enough that it’s ingrained in my head.

How do you learn new things best? Reading, listening, hands on? 

8 Comments

    1. Hands-on is definitely best for me, but at YouTube has been a good substitute for learning new things. I have a few videos bookmarked to go back to, but this is the only one that I have watched multiple times.

  1. SNAP! Love YouTube, was particularly invaluable when I was learning how to core beads. Not many videos about but I found one that was really helpful.

    Will definitely come back to watch the video when I have time.

    Mars xx

    1. There are some things that pictures and words just can’t do justice to, isn’t there :) I remember a few knitting videos that were really handy, too. Places where pictures didn’t show how to move your hands to get from one stitch to another so that you didn’t drop a stitch. Or just so that you could do it fluidly and keep going!

    1. Most people seem to hate reading manuals :D But, there are also quite a few badly written manuals, so I completely understand! If something is clearly written out, I can usually figure it out, but sometimes I really do need that extra boost to get a concept.

    1. I dismissed YouTube for many years, figuring that it was just fluff. Then I realized that it was more “real” than many of the official sources of info because people were more willing to show what went wrong as well as what went right. So you could learn from others mistakes rather than repeating them :)

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