Ceramic Slab Technique

Before potters began using pottery wheels simple tools were used to create clay pottery.

Ceramic slab technique.

Before potters had the wheel they were creating beautiful pots and clay forms using clay their hands and fingers and basic hand tools. Birdie boone works with super thin slabs to make. This technique offers less warpage than soft slab construction. Once the clay is leather hard cut out your pieces and join them by scoring and slipping.

Also joints in slab built pieces are more likely to crack or split during. The most common handbuilding techniques are pinch pottery coil building and slab building. Modern potters and ceramic sculptors have embraced the slab creating works using both soft slabs and stiff leather hard slabs. Today slab pots and slab building techniques are experiencing a renewed popularity.

Liz zlot summerfield is also an excellent resource for slab building techniques. Slabbing clay is a handbuilding pottery technique that has been around for centuries. Handbuilding is working with clay by hand using only simple tools not the pottery wheel. Slabbing clay is a technique the includes rolling out slabs of clay and then cutting out pieces and attaching them together to create pots cups and urns.

To get you started check out this article by daryl baird on using slump molds with soft slabs. Pinchpot coiling and slab techniques. Jomon vessel 3000 2000 b c e on view at tokyo national museum tokyo japan. More on soft slab pottery.

Handbuilding is an ancient pottery making technique that involves creating forms without a pottery wheel using the hands fingers and simple tools. Below are the three most common forms of creating hand built pots. If you have caught the slab pottery bug you ve come to the right place for inspiration. Use only dried and firm slabs of clay for this technique.