Ceramics Final Vocabulary!!

Slip

Muddy wet clay- used to glue moist clay

Plastic

Soft squishable clay

Leather hard

Dry, but still slightly flexible

Bone dry

as dry as unfiltered clay can get- it turns a light color

Greenware

Dry, unfired clay

Bisque

First firing of clay that removes all of the chemical water (H2O)

Score

Scratching clay to make pieces stick together

Fire

Heating clay until all h2o is removed

Kiln

Oven in which clay is “baked”

Wedge

Kneeling the clay to get a uniform consistency and remove air. To wedge means to cut clay into manageable pieces and push and press on the clay to spell all air bubbles, trapped in the clay. If not done thoroughly air bubbles will cause the clay piece to burst in the kiln, damaging the kill and other pieces of work.

Coil

A long, thin snake of clay

Flowing coat

loading the brush with enough glaze that it goes on smoothly

Line

A mark with greater length than width. Can be horizontal, vertical or diagonal, Straight or curved, thick or thin.

Shape

A closed line. A shape can go geometric like squares in circles or organic, like freeform or natural shapes. They are flat and have length and width.

Form

Three dimensional shapes which have length width in depth, balls, boxes and pyramids are forms

Texture

A surface quality that can be seen or felt, examples are rough, smooth, soft, hard.

No trapped air

It is important to make sure there is no trapped air in the clay as when air is heated it expands and blows up the project

Hollow out

It is important to make sure anything thicker than your thumb is hollowed out, so it will dry completely. Moisture in the clay will turn to steam and blow up the project.

Pinch pot

A pinch pot is a simple form of handmade pottery produced from ancient times to the present…

simple bowl shapes are formed in shaped by hand, using a methodical pinching process in which the clay walls are thinned by pinching them with thumb and fore- finger.

Paddling

After scoring together, two pinch pots to form a hollow balloon shape, the shape can be puddled with a flat wood stick to change the shape of the balloon form.

Sculpture, sculpt, sculpting

Manipulating materials to create a specific form.

Armature

An interior base or “skeleton” of a sculpture. The armature is used to hold up. The form of the sculpture wall is being built.