Preparing Clay for Molding

Series Summary

Making pottery is the art of creating earthenware vessels from clay. The process involves shaping a vessel, by hand or with tools, and cooking it in a kiln. Mankind has been making pottery since the times we first learned about fire. Ancient civilizations used pottery for all sorts of things, from storing oil, wine, and other foodstuffs, to holding papyrus scrolls, the organs of dead god-kings, perfumes, and various religious offerings. Because pottery is durable and lasts long after its creator is gone, it has helped us to learn about entire groups of people that we might have otherwise never known; these hand-crafted objects tell stories, not only from their complex structural designs, but also the carefully wrought stories painted on their surfaces, a sort of iconography of a time and place in history.

In this free video clip series this clay expert will be addressing the art of slab pottery using slabs of clay instead of forming it with your hands. She will include several examples of natural hand movements you can use to create life in your pieces as well as several creative ideas for new and interesting designs no one has thought of yet. This will make each piece you make special and unique. You will learn tricks for scoring edges of clay, attaching them and even how to apply handles to a pouring bowl. Take a look at these great videos and go play in the mud!

Video Transcript

"Another great project to do on the wheel is a batter bowl. I got one that is partially completed right here. It is a basically a bowl that is big enough do some mixing. It needs to have high sides so when you are stirring it does not go splashing everywhere. Then I put a spout on it and I'm going to show you a variety of different ways to put a handle on the other side so when you go to actually pour into your pancake pan or whatever it is that you are pouring into you have something to hold onto. Now this particular size of batter bowl I'm using 2 1/2 pounds of clay. So the first thing that I have to do is weight that out. So I take my wire tool and cut off a hunk of clay that I think is pretty close, weight it on my kitchen scale. It is slightly over 2 1/2 pounds so I would take a pinch off. There we go 2 1/2 pounds. So once you have that piece of clay weighted properly just give it a little wedge just a couple of pushes down, get it into a circle into a sphere. Then pat it out until you have a nice good ball for throwing and now I would show you how to make the batter bowl at the wheel. "