How To Make A Slab Ceramics

Trim one edge into a straight line using your potter s needle.

How to make a slab ceramics.

Roll the clay using the slab roller. Best for flat sided objects. Using slab pottery templates is a great way to consistently build a form over and over again. Mistakes made in the creation of slabs may destroy the piece in later stages of construction.

Before you begin rolling make sure that the canvas lead is under the roller. What makes these creations unique is the hand artistry and the type of potter s clay you use. Best for hollow or non symmetrical objects. Andrew avakian makes slab pottery templates to help generate new slab built forms.

Working with slabs by hand also is generally easier to master than using a potter s wheel. Andrew creates maquettes of possible new pieces using tagboard thick paper and then tweaks them until he creates the. Laying it so it abuts one edge of your base mark and trim away the clay so that the new slab will fit snugly in between the interior surfaces of the two sides already in place. But this tutorial for a slab built mug is still for those who have some experience with pottery.

Slab building allows you to make pottery including mugs and pitchers with clean lines. Instead of one block of clay you simply pile or coils into a shape. You can create an interesting texture or pattern by or coiling layers together. Then spin the large wheel on the side of the table to move the roller over the clay.

Making the clay slabs is the first step in all slab built pottery construction. Basic ceramic hand building technique how to roll a slab is a fundamental skill for building with clay tips tricks and recommendations provided. This is an important foundation. Form a slab just as you did in steps one and three.

But there are more benefits than just that. You put the sides of the clay onto a form. You can turn the wheel back and forth so that the roller moves over the clay in both directions.