Ceramics

Ceramics - Pottery or hollow clay sculpture fired at high temperatures in a kiln or oven to make them harder and stronger. Types include earthenware, porcelain, stoneware, and terra cotta. Clay - Mud; moist, sticky dirt. In ceramics, clay is the basic material, usually referring to any of a certain variety of mixtures of such ingredients -- fine-grained, firm earthy material that is plastic when wet, brittle when dry, and very hard when heated.

Earthenware - pottery or other objects made from fired clay which is porous and permeable. Earthenware is fired at relatively low temperature, may be glazed or unglazed, and is usually but not always buff, red, or brown in color.

Bisque - Clay that has been fired once but not glazed.

Greenware - Generally refers to unfired pottery.

leather-hard - In ceramics, a state in which clay has lost moisture to evaporation, but has not yet completely hardened; clay damp enough to be joined to other pieces with scoring and slip.

slip - An creamy liquid made by mixing finely ground clay with water. It is also used in the making of pottery to cement together parts that have been formed separately.

slab construction - A pottery technique in which a form is built up by joining shapes cut from thick sheets of damp clay.

coil and coil method or coil construction - Coils are long, snake-like ropes of clay that are used in making pottery. The coil method of making pottery involves building the walls of a pot with a series of coils into the required shape. Once the desired height has been reached the surface can either remain coil-textured or they can be smoothed. Much pottery in primitive cultures was made this way, and remains one of the principle hand-building technique potters use.  

scoring - To make scratches or creases in pieces of clay to be joined together. Scoring and applying slip to such roughened surfaces creates a bond that holds the pieces together.

pinch, pinch-pot - Pinching is a pottery technique, making a pinch-pot is pressing the thumb into a ball of clay, and drawing the clay out into a pot by repeatedly squeezing the clay between the thumb and fingers.

throwing - In pottery, throwing means making a pot from a piece of clay on a potter‘s wheel.potter's wheel - A revolving horizontal disk, on which clay is shaped manually into pottery vessels.

pottery - Objects, and especially pots, which are made from fired clay. Pots are functional ceramic objects, and may take such forms as plates, bowls, cups, jars, vases, urns, ewers (pitchers), bottles, and boxes.

glossy - Surfaces which are shiny.  

matte - Having a dull, flat, non-reflective, sometimes roughly textured finish.

kiln - An special oven or furnace that can reach very high temperatures and is used to bake, or fire clay. Kilns may be electric, gas, or wood-fired.

firing - A process of applying heat to make hard pottery in either an oven or an ovenlike enclosure called a kiln. Also the means of fixing colors to ceramic surfaces.

firing cracks - Cracks appearing in a cooling material, caused by the tension from the different rates of its shrinking.

glaze - A term used in ceramics to describe a thin coating of minerals which produces a glassy transparent or colored coating on bisque ware. Typically applied either by brushing, dipping, or spraying, it is fixed by firing the bisque ware in a kiln. This makes the surface smooth, shiny, and waterproof.

Types of Clay SculpturesCoil Construction

Pinch Construction

Slab Construction

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Thrown Sculpture

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