Honors Ceramics Vocab

Bat

A flat disc places on top of a pottery wheel head

Belly

The wider, outward-curving Middle section of a hollow vessel like a vase, pot or jug

Bottle form

A whole piece with a rounded body and distinctly narrow neck and Small opening

Caliper

An adjustable handheld measuring tool to measure the diameter and thickness of parts of pieces

Centering

Aligning a lump of clay perfectly in the middle of the bat on a wheel

Cheese Hard

Stage of clay dryness, an alternate for leather hard

Chittering

Decorative texture created by intentionally letting a trimming tool bouncer repeatedly against the clay

Chuck

Hollow cup-shaped, ceramic or plaster form, used to hold an inverted pot steady on the wheel when trimming

Combing

Surface decoration technique created by dragging a multi-toothed tool through wet slip or glaze

Counter change

A design pattern were positive and negative shapes, alternate or reverse contrast across a central line

Crawling

A glazed defect where the glaze pulls away from the clay during firing, leaving bare spots on the pottery

Dog’s teeth

A jagged cracked pattern that forms along the edges of clay when it’s rolled out too fast or stretched too thin

Coning

The active repeatedly pushing clay up into a cone shape and back down on the wheel