I like this style of pendant very much as it hides the cord or chain that its hanging from, but it takes a great deal longer to clean than the plain square, rectangular or circular shapes I've done previously. I reckon I spent about 2.5 hours cleaning 14 pendants....oh well, I love scraping :) The clay at this point is medium hard, and in the case of mid-fire porcelain, slightly brittle, but cleans beautifully.
After working on this site all day yesterday, building some pendants this morning, hoping to clean them this afternoon before leaving to pick up Quinn. It takes me about 35-40 minutes to very roughly fashion about 14 pieces. This includes wedging the clay, rolling it out to about 1.5 cm thick....I use anything around the house to print a rough shape into the sheet of clay (Today, for instance, was the ring off a mason jar, the rectangular bottom of a Keens dry mustard tin, and the squarer shape of a tin of smoked paprika :))....I then cut out these rough shapes using an exacto knife.
Score the edges where I want to join clay to clay and use some slip in the join, roughly smooth this out and then lay on a sheet of drywall to dry for about an hour or so. Then, I'll do the first cleaning - which includes cutting of rough edges and refining the shape a bit. Let the piece dry some more, and use some of my finer clay tools to finish defining the shapes and shaving it down, then a damp cloth to smooth edges.
All about clay! My musings, learnings and diversions over the creation of my ceramic pretties