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How to Prepare Colored Slips for Slip Trailing, Plus Lots of Slip Trailing Tips! This clip was excerpted from Layered Surfaces with Erin Furimsky, which is available in the Ceramic Arts Daily Bookstore! Order online and get free shipping! (Free shipping applies to U.S. orders only) To learn more about Erin Furimsky or to see more images of her work, please visit www.erinfurimsky.com. For more ways to add dimensionality to your work, download your free copy of Ceramic Carving Tool Techniques: Bringing the Ceramic Surface to Life! Click here to leave a comment. An Easy Way to Transfer Imagery to Pottery. Setting Up Manipulate the clay while it is still soft and pliable.

If making tiles, trim it to size (figure 5). Tip: Place the straight edge over your image as you cut, so if your hand slips, you won’t cut into your image. Place a thin sheet of plastic over the slab and rub the edges gently with your finger to produce a consistent rolled edge without marring the image (figure 6). If you prefer to allow the slab to dry slightly, place it on a piece of drywall and cover with plastic (figure 7). Finishing You can easily carve the surface at the leather-hard stage. The sgraffito tool works well for detail work.

Applying Color I prefer to apply commercial underglazes after bisque firing because at this stage, the image is essentially a contour drawing similar to a coloring book. You can fire the tile between each application of color, or in this case, I applied three colors at one time before firing. This makes a great project for teachers! Lakeside Pottery's Tips | Instructions and tutorials on many clay subjects. Hi Joan, good question and we'll add this answer to our tutorial for others to read. In your case, PVA is probably a better choice mainly because you leave the repaired surface untreated or untouched. The bonding principal of PVA is that it soaks into porous materials such as old ceramic, bones, wood, etc. For best adherence strength and longevity, use the proper PVA viscosity (V15 or V25 for porous ceramic). The benefits of PVA (Polyvinyl Acetate) are: 1) Will not yellow and has good stability to light (UV) 2) The gluing job can be reversible meaning, the glue will remain soluble and can be easily removed from a repaired subject later and be ready for re-gluing. 3) Easy to work with and easy to clean up 4) Low cost The disadvantages of PVA: 1) Medium bonding strength (way less than new modern epoxies) 2) Cemented item can fail in humid, cold or hot storage 3) Will not work with non-porous objects We use mostly epoxy resins because: 3) Epoxy does not shrink as it cures Epoxy disadvantages: Hi.

How to Make Large Clay Slab Construction Project Without Cracking or Warping? The slab project below is a sample of our commission work requiring large slab construction using cone 6 high firing stoneware to insure durability and longevity. The "high firing" challenge is to eliminate or minimize warping and cracking that typically occurs due to stoneware clay's high shrinkage rate (12% +). We took the opportunity to illustrate how to work effectively with large flat forms without cracking while minimizing warping.

Large square-shaped slab construction can be frustrating. The key elements to success are: clay type (high grog content), how soft / hard the slab is in each stage of construction, slab is not too thin, use of miter cutting (45 degrees), using coil to round all slab connection points, use of magic water instead of slip, avoiding clay bending throughout the process, proper drying and firing schedule and kiln programing. This project consists of two throphys that are ready to accept 16 winning plaques on each side with Sgraffito drawings and writing. Throwing a Basic Pot on The Potter's Wheel Tutorial | Step By Step Illustrations. Paper Clay, Magic Water, Magic Mud recipe, slip - Lakeside Pottery Ceramic school and Art Studio in Stamford Connecticut. When to use Magic Water? Magic water is used when the bond between two pieces of clay is a suspect for cracking during drying or bisque firing.

Cracks can occur in the following conditions: When one piece of clay dries faster than the other which typically occurs when it has a smaller mass or thinner than the other piece (e.g., a mug handle). When one clay piece is applied to another piece that is already a dryer leather-hard (e.g., when waiting is required for a thrown pot to harden before applying hand-built piece). The above two conditions are more susceptible to cracking because when one piece is dryer that the other, it is therefore shrunk more than the other and will not continue to shrink uniformly after they are attached to each other, thus - creating stress. When to use Magic Mud / Paper Clay? Same as above with more extreme cases. Why does Magic Water work? Why does Magic Mud /Paper Clay work? Potters Council Question of the Week. Searchresults. Main Index. Glaze, Clay, and Material Databases About the GlazeBase Project - find out what it is and how you can help build the international glaze database Ceramics Databases - download the archived ClayArt glazes - GlazeBase and ClayArt glaze databases are not currenly available - check back during Summer 2010 - Material Analyses database - an international resource - not currenly available - check back during Summer 2010 Health and Safety Information Health and Safety - links to other sites with MSDS, articles, and legal info on health and safety issues Ceramics Magazines Ceramics Magazines - addresses of periodicals worldwide Software Ceramics Software (includes GlazeBase software) - professional software, free software and shareware for Macintosh, DOS, and Windows Other Ceramics Web Sites Links to Other Ceramics Sites - a variety of selected ceramics-related web sites Class Materials and Education Internet Ceramics Groups Exhibitions and Shows Some other SDSU campus WWW sites of interest:

Critical Ceramics. How to cut glass. I posted a picture about 1 week ago on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter of me cutting glass using just string. I got LOT’S of requests for a tutorial on how I DID THIS! So here it is. FINALLY! You will be able to learn how to cut glass. I want to warn you. When I first started doing this I got VERY frustrated because I could not get it to break the way I wanted. It’s best to triple your yarn because it will burn longer! Soak it GOOD! I like to tie my yarn where I want my glass to “cut” then quickly pour polish remover over the string again.

Get a big bowl with ice and water ready. VERY IMPORTANT! Slowly turn your bottle. You can’t let the flame go OUT then dunk it in the ice water. YAY!!! I reallly hope you enjoyed this tutorial because I had ALOT of requests for it! © Copyright jaderbombllc, All rights Reserved. Wheel Throwing Video: Centering, Throwing and Trimming Tips From an Expert Potter. This clip was excerpted from Beginning to Throw on the Potter’s Wheel with Robin Hopper, which is available in the Ceramic Arts Daily Bookstore! More Throwing Tips! If you have taken the usual precautions after throwing and still have trouble with the bottoms of pots cracking, place the wedged clay on the wheel so the roll or spiral of the wedge is lying on its side, not on end. To ensure this alignment, pat the clay into a cone immediately after wedging. (If you use a pug mill and do not wedge your clay, place the pug on its side rather than on end.)

This method can eliminate virtually all bottom cracks and is especially effective when throwing plates and large, flat-bottomed pieces. Trimming the foot of a large-diameter plate or platter can be a problem. A kitchen spatula with a wooden handle will make a variety of throwing tools. If your main form of exercise is wedging and throwing clay, try sitting on an exercise ball (yoga ball) to get a free workout at the wheel.