Definition Of Handbuilding In Ceramics

Basic pottery hand building techniques.

Definition of handbuilding in ceramics.

What makes these creations unique is the hand artistry and the type of potter s clay you use. Handbuilding clay sculpting any clay body by hand. Before potters had the wheel they were creating beautiful pots and clay forms using clay their hands and fingers and basic hand tools. They can be used individually or combined together to suit your whims.

Incise indenting into the wet clay. Pinchpot coiling and slab techniques. Kiln a furnace or oven for burning baking or drying especially for firing pottery. Most often ceramic tools are used to carve engrave incise the clay.

Learn about the spruce crafts editorial process. Beth peterson is a potter artist and writer with more than 30 years of experience crafting clay and ceramics. Hand building pottery using slabs of clay is an exciting way to create shapes that could never be produced using a potter s wheel or that would be difficult to achieve if you are doing hand construction using coils of clay. Below are the three most common forms of creating hand built pots.

Handbuilding is working with clay by hand using only simple tools not the pottery wheel. Handbuilding is an ancient pottery making technique that involves creating forms without a pottery wheel using the hands fingers and simple tools. To make a pinch pot one inserts a thumb into a ball of clay and continually pinches the the clay between the thumb and fingers while rotating to thin. Making a pinch pot is the simplest way to begin working with clay.

You start by kneading the clay into a small lump about the size of your fist. Pin share email kidstock getty images.