What Is Slab Built Ceramics

To get you started check out this article by daryl baird on using slump molds with soft slabs.

What is slab built ceramics. 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. Handbuilding is an ancient pottery making technique that involves creating forms without a pottery wheel using the hands fingers and simple tools. Liz zlot summerfield is also an excellent resource for slab building techniques. But this tutorial for a slab built mug is still for those who have some experience with pottery.

Slabbing clay is a handbuilding pottery technique that has been around for centuries. The three basic techniques of hand building are pinch coil and slab construction. More on soft slab pottery. Most ancient cultures gravitated to the pottery wheel for.

How to slab clay. Slab building techniques were used extensively by mesoamerican pre columbian potters with some beautiful results. Your own slab building pottery projects can work well for you if you have a construction need and want to save money while at it. Birdie boone works with super thin slabs to make.

Pinchpot coiling and slab techniques. History of slab building. Making a pinch pot is the simplest way to begin working. If you have caught the slab pottery bug you ve come to the right place for inspiration.

Below are the three most common forms of creating hand built pots. Instead of relying on a mould or the force of a wheel coiling as with slab built ceramics requires only the artist s steady hand to shape the vessel s form. Working with slabs by hand also is generally easier to master than using a potter s wheel. Before potters began using pottery wheels simple tools were used to create clay pottery.

Before potters had the wheel they were creating beautiful pots and clay forms using clay their hands and fingers and basic hand tools. Slabbing clay is a technique the includes. Hand built pottery tends to look more rustic and rough around the edges than pottery thrown on a wheel which is part of its charm. The most common handbuilding techniques are pinch pottery coil building and slab building.

They can be used individually or combined together to suit your whims. Slab building allows you to make pottery including mugs and pitchers with clean lines. As much of riska s work is large scale some objects reach as high as eight feet the long and meticulous process of creating it would seem painstaking but the artist finds it.