Working with Clay: Balls and Snakes!

Take my Advice: Don’t over work your clay. If you pinch too hard as you go around the sides your clay will stretch out larger than you want.

While the clay is soft you can reduce the sides by folding a little pleat at the top and pressing to even out the clay again.

Your Pinch Pot may be very soft at this time and would be a good idea to let it sit and harden some before you try to add to it, attach it to another Pinch Pot, or smooth out the sides. Now when I say sit and harden some, it really takes experience to know how dry you can let it get. So let me give you some ideas.

First of all – how fast your Ceramic piece will dry and harden depends on how wet the atmosphere is. Yes it may not dry very fast if the humidity is high and it will dry faster than you expect if you have heat blowing on it or it is in a Ceramics Studio that has Kilns firing.

Take my Advice: Until you have more experience with letting clay harden don’t leave it uncovered unless you can check on it from time to time.

If you cover your Ceramic piece in plastic and let it sit for hours or overnight it will start to harden. When you have pieces that you have attached together it is better if they dry slowly and you may want to keep them covered between working on them. This is what I usually do with my large sculptural pieces.

 

Maria Martinez uses a base that she puts her Pinch Pot into to keep it even and sturdy while adding coils to build up the walls in her pots. Another way to work on a coil ceramic piece is by putting it on a movable surface or a banding wheel that will allow you to turn your coiled piece as your are working on it without damaging the bottom.

You can add coils or snakes to a pinch pot to build a bowel or any shape you want to. Either let your pinch pot sit and start to turn to leather hard before you start adding coils or use a base. When making coils make them uniform in size. Remember the larger a piece you want to make the larger your coils should be.

Ceramic Artists work in different ways.

Here is a link that shows many coiled Ceramic pieces.

http://www.slideshare.net/alisontaylorbc/coiled-pottery

 Connect two pinch pots and you have a hollow sculpture.

 There are many Ceramic examples on the Internet - these are just a few I found!   Explore and Create!