Art and Design A comprehensive guide for creative artists - Aaltodoc

owl, a cup. In size and shape it will correspond to ...”
That is to say, pinching clay—moulding and shaping
it between fingers and thumb is a natural human
response. As a pottery learner start with a pinch
building technique that you will be able to discover
other ways of creating useful clay artworks.
2. Coil building is a method, which requires gentle ways
of handling clay by rolling it with both hands forward
and backwards between bases of your palm, towards
the fingers. At the appropriate stage of building a
pottery artwork, pay attention to rolled parts of an
emerging coil.
If the parts of clay coils turn into a full roll, shift then
carefully to the other ends of your palm and then
continue to roll. Avoid half rolls since the expected coil
might not happen. In another way, clay coils can be
rolled on a flat, smooth surface of a table. Although,
such coils tend to appear dry and cracked.
In general, using coils to build a pottery artwork
starts with a sketch. Follow some of the essential
requirements of a provided task and then roll suitable
coils. To join each obtained coil; make scores or
scratches on a single side of a wet clay coil and add slip
in the scratched areas. Slip works as an adhesive. Hence
scoring means to create scratches or cut markings on a
coil surface. Coils have a vast creative potential, owing
to the fact that they can build, as well as decorate.
Müller (2007, 67) is more enlightening: “Many primitive
cultures ... still use coiling to build large storage
jars or traditional and ceremonial pottery forms.”
Undoubtedly, then, coiling clay is a very easy way of
using hands to create pottery artworks. To this extent,
creative pottery artists must be encouraged to produce
various useful artworks with this hand building
technique.
3. Slab building is a technique used by nearly all pottery
artists to build clay walls. Clay slabs are easy to make for
they allow quick pottery constructions. The slab forms a
wall structure using clay to support a planned shape.
During slab building, a pottery artist lays flat a clean
polythene bag—on a table support and by using
a thumb, wet clay is put in a precise position to be
proportionally distributed everywhere on a polythene
bag up to a measurement of thickness and height not
exceeding 1cm (height-to-thickness). The thickness
of a clay slab can be regulated by using two straight
flat-shaped pieces of wood. These should have the
same ratio of height and thickness expected for a slab.
Another polythene bag can be spread on top of the
attained layer of an advancing clay slab. Pick a
rolling pin and then run it over the attained layer of
clay; up and down. The method of rolling to make a
slab is similar to the ways “chapati” is levelled out
during cooking.
After acquiring a reasonable thickness of the
desired clay slab take a sharp tool like a knife
and precisely cut out shapes that you need. Be
mindful of the needs mentioned by the task at
hand.
Techniques of decorating greenware
In the words of Hinshaw (2008, 90), “Greenware is a clay
work that has not been bisque fired.” Thereby, clay can be
decorated after firing it and even before when it is still
at a greenware stage. Pottery artists and mainly creative
artists decorate clay according to some obtainable sources
of inspiration, function, culture and for some established
society practices. Nevertheless, all these involve working
with different tools and materials.
According to Lugira (1970, 81), “a common method used
on unfired clay was to mark pottery surfaces with patterns
using a roulette.” Here we see that decorating pottery
surfaces can be done with simple tools.
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Making a
clay slab
Materials: A
rolling pin, with
supports of
narrow straight
pieces of wood
between
wet clay