This document provides information on creating ceramic vessels from clay. It defines key terms like ceramics, pottery, and kiln. It explains that clay is a natural medium made from earth and water that can hold its shape when wet. It also outlines different hand building methods for shaping clay including pinch pots, coil building, and slab building. The document describes various stages of drying and firing clay, from greenware to bisqueware to glazeware.

1. Ceramics
Creating a ceramic vessel

2. Clay
 Clay is a natural 3-d medium
made from earth and water.
 Clay is different from mud
because it has plasticity, this
means I can hold shape while
being handled.
 In Asheville at
highwaterclays.com North
Carolina wet clay is sold as
cheap as $.55 per pound, but
has a fifty pound minimum.

3. Basic Terms
 Ceramics – objects that
permanently retain their
shape when heated to the
necessary temperature.
 Pottery – Moist clay shaped
into utilitarian objects such as
bowls, cups, plates, etc. then
hardened by heat.

4. Basic Terms Continued
 Wedge – A way of improving
the workability of the clay by
reforming the mixture to be
homogeneous by evening the
texture and eliminating the
air bubbles.

5. Basic Terms Continued
 Kiln – may also be pronounced kill, is a specialized oven design
to heat clay to the high temperatures needed to change it’s
chemical make-up.

6. Basic Terms Continued
 Fire – Heating pottery to a temperature high enough to
change it’s chemical make-up to render it a final product.

7. Hand Building Methods
 Pinch pot
 Slab Building
 Coil Building

8. Hand Building Methods
 Pinch pot - Hand
building method which
involves squeezing clay
between thumb and
fingers.

9. Hand Building Methods
 Coil Building – Attaching
long thin rolls of clay
together to create a
ceramic work.

10. Hand Building Methods
 Slab Building - Clay
building technique where
thin sheets of clay are
attached together to create
a ceramic work.

11. Construction terms
 Scoring – scratching the
edges of clay before
jointing. (ALWAYS SCORE
DEEP)
 Slip – a mixture of clay and
water which acts as a clay
glue.

12. Clay Stages
 Greenware - moist workable unfired clay.
 Leatherhard - stage of clay where joining should happen, at
this point clay is not moldable but may still be worked with.
 Bone Dry - this is as dry as the clay gets without firing it. It is
now ready for firing.

13. Clay Stages
 Bisqueware – clay which has
gone through a low fire in a
kiln, this can not be recycled,
will not yet hold water.
 Glazeware - clay which has
been glazed and fired at a
high temperature, now is a
finished product.
 Glaze - a liquid glasslike
substance which when fired
creates a glasslike coating on
a ceramic artwork.