How To Make A Slab Ceramics

Andrew avakian makes slab pottery templates to help generate new slab built forms.

How to make a slab ceramics.

Instead of one block of clay you simply pile or coils into a shape. Best for flat sided objects. Then spin the large wheel on the side of the table to move the roller over the clay. Basic ceramic hand building technique how to roll a slab is a fundamental skill for building with clay tips tricks and recommendations provided.

Mistakes made in the creation of slabs may destroy the piece in later stages of construction. Roll the clay using the slab roller. Form a slab just as you did in steps one and three. Before you begin rolling make sure that the canvas lead is under the roller.

A step by step video on how to use the slab roller to make a plate with a unique foot. 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. You can create an interesting texture or pattern by or coiling layers together. But there are more benefits than just that.

You put the sides of the clay onto a form. This is an important foundation. What makes these creations unique is the hand artistry and the type of potter s clay you use. Using slab pottery templates is a great way to consistently build a form over and over again.

Making the clay slabs is the first step in all slab built pottery construction. Andrew creates maquettes of possible new pieces using tagboard thick paper and then tweaks them until he creates the. Hand building pottery using slabs of clay is an exciting way to create shapes that could never be produced using a potter s wheel or that would be difficult to achieve if you are doing hand construction using coils of clay. Working with slabs by hand also is generally easier to master than using a potter s wheel.

They adhere together with slip and create one mass. Trim one edge into a straight line using your potter s needle. You can turn the wheel back and forth so that the roller moves over the clay in both directions.