Clay...What is it and how do we use it?
Clay Terms
- Ceramics: Art of making objects out of clay to produce pottery and sculpture.
- Clay: Stiff, sticky kind of earth that is used in ceramics. It is wet, and it hardens after drying or heating.
- Wedging: Kneading the clay with hands to force out air pockets and create a uniform texture.
- Pinch: a hand building technique which uses the fingers to gently pinch the clay to shape it into a bowl or other forms.
- Coil building: a hand building technique, using the hands to roll out and rope shaped lengths of clay. The coils may be any size, but must be consistent with one another to build pottery. The coils are wrapped together on top of one another to form the sides of pottery.
- Slab building: a hand building technique using rolling pins to roll out sheets of clay. These can be cut to form patterns and assemble into forms.
- Score and Slip: a joining technique where the edges to be attached are roughened up and “glued” with liquid clay (slip).
- Slip: watered down clay (becomes soft and slippery).
- Kiln: a furnace or oven made of ceramic used to fire or “heat” ceramic objects. A kiln may be electric, gas, or wood-burning and reach temperatures in excess of 2,500 degrees.
- Glaze: In ceramics, a thin, glossy coating fired into pottery or vases.
- Plastic stage: a stage when clay is workable, pliable clay.
- Leather Hard: condition of raw clay where it has lost most of its moisture, but it is still able to be joined or carved.
- Green Ware: Pottery that has not been fired.
- Bisque Ware: Clay has been fired once in a kiln.
- Earthen Ware: (Glaze Ware) Clay has been fired (low fire) a second time in a kiln.