Ceramic Slab Building Techniques

Today slab pots and slab building techniques are experiencing a renewed popularity.

Ceramic slab building techniques.

Slab pots tend to be a bit tougher to produce technically speaking than those created using other. Liz zlot summerfield is also an excellent resource for slab building techniques. Before potters had the wheel they were creating beautiful pots and clay forms using clay their hands and fingers and basic hand tools. This broad approach to slab work shows a wide variety of building methods and shows the work of many high profile makers in this area.

The figure s elaborate garb jewelry and headdress represent the. Pinchpot coiling and slab techniques. Handbuilding is an ancient pottery making technique that involves creating forms without a pottery wheel using the hands fingers and simple tools. The machine then has a piece of cloth connected to it which you lay on top of the clay.

To get you started check out this article by daryl baird on using slump molds with soft slabs. To make a pinch pot one inserts a thumb into a ball of clay and continually pinches the the clay between the thumb and fingers while rotating to thin. Birdie boone works with super thin slabs to make. Found in indian and mesopotamian architecture ceramic tiles are believed to have been constructed from slabs of clay since 14 000 b c.

How to slab clay. It flattens out the clay and makes it ready to use. Before potters began using pottery wheels simple tools were used to create clay pottery. If you have caught the slab pottery bug you ve come to the right place for inspiration.

Effigy urn in the form of the sun god from 12th 14th century mesoamerica is formed from a slab of unglazed clay also called earthenware. Most ancient cultures gravitated to the pottery wheel for the creation of vessels. Next you turn a giant wheel and the slab roller rolls over the clay like a steam roller. In order to work a slab roller you lay your clay on a long strip of cloth.

Which is formed by joining flat slabs of clay together. Slabbing clay is a handbuilding pottery technique that has been around for centuries. Below are the three most common forms of creating hand built pots. The most common handbuilding techniques are pinch pottery coil building and slab building.

The aim is to explore and explain most of these methods through step by step images and text using a varied range of both pots and sculpture. Most do not realize the infinite world of hand building and the artistic possibilities it opens. Beth peterson is a potter artist and writer with more than 30 years of experience crafting clay and ceramics. More on soft slab pottery.