Pottery                                        

The term ‘Pottery’ comes from the latin word ‘poterium’, a drinking vessel, and is applied to all clay or ceramic work produced and fired to suitable heats.

There are 3 main classes of clay:

• Earthenware…fired at low heats, soft enough to be scratched with a knife, with glazing produces a good, durable piece of work
• Stoneware…fired at high heats. Is hard, dense and strong
• Porcelain   fired at the highest heats, often translucent. Used for dinner plates and drinking cups and good china.

Most earthenware is fired at temperatures no higher than 1,080 degrees C to 1,150 degrees C, sometimes 1,300 degrees C in modern electric kilns.

• You must always ‘wedge’ your clay before using.

 This removes the air bubbles from the clay. If the air bubbles are not removed, they will expand when heated in the kiln, and cause your piece to crack or explode.

• Place or pot or working piece onto newspaper or cardboard so that as the pot shrinks, so does the paper, and this saves many a cracked bottom.
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Three Methods of making clay shapes.

• Pinch
• Coil
• Slab

1. Pinch Pottery

• Take a  piece of wedged clay and pat it into a round ball.
• Push the thumbs into the clay and continue pinching and turning with the thumbs and fingers, gradually squeezing the clay into the desired shape.
• The outside of the pot may be scraped, or marked or smoothes for decoration.

2. Coiled Pottery

• Build a base from coils or a flat piece of clay.
• Roll out pieces of clay into cylinder shaped strips, and into longer pencil shaped pieces.
• Begin to build up the walls winding the coils one on top of the other, forming the shape as it grows.
• Put an extra coil at the bottom to seal the inside to the base.
• Every few coils smooth and seal the inside and then the outside too.
• You can decorate the outside when you have finished.

You can create coiled pots by coiling around balloons, sand bags, etc…when dry, remove the air or the sand and you have the shape.