What: The coiling technique involves using coils of clay. The coiling technique is traditionally used to make pots. However, the coiling technique can be used to make virtually any form desired. Coils are most frequently made in the traditional tube form. Nevertheless, coils can be extruded in a variety of different forms, such as triangular prisms or even octagons, provided one has a clay extruder and necessary shaped-die.

Ideal Coil Thickness: After the coil is attached and smoothed, the thickness should be 3/8" (pinkie thickness)

Tips:

• When rolling out coils, it is helpful for students to begin by pinching their piece of clay into a thick hot dog or sausage-shaped piece of clay.

• When rolling out a coil, it is important to use a smooth back and forth motion, involving one's whole hand from one's finger tips to the end of one's palm of the hand.

• If the coil becomes to flat on one side, the coil should be picked up the tapped on the table with the tall side standing up to make the coil more even before resuming the rolling motion.

• If the coil becomes thinner in one area, remove your hand's pressure from that part and press and roll on the thicker parts.

• If the coil becomes too thin (thinner than pinkie finger), tear the coil at the point it is thinnest, bring the two pieces closer together so that the thin parts are overlapping and gently smoosh the thin ends together and blend. Resume rolling out the coil if necessary.

• The base of a coil pot can be either a spiral wrapped coil or a slab of clay.

• While not always necessary to scratch and slip each coil onto the previous coil (provided that the clay is all at the same plastic stage of drying), I recommend that students be taught to always scratch and slip to help ensure a stronger bond between coils, even if the coils are to be blended together on the inside and outside.

• When starting or ending a coil, overlap the ends and cut through them at a 45 degree angle, before scratching and slipping, so that they are flush with each other.

• The form of the coiled piece can altered by using a paddle.

Widening & Narrowing the Form:

• Widening the form can be done by placing new coils just slightly on the outside edge of the previous coil.

• Narrowing the form can be done by placing new coils just slightly on the inside edge of the previous coil.

What: The slab construction technique involves using slabs of clay. This technique can be used for making pieces ranging from geometric cube boxes to complex organic, sculptural forms.

Ideal Slab Thickness: 3/8" (pinkie finger thickness)

About: Slabs can be formed either by hand or with a slab roller.

Tips:

• If students are forming slabs by hand, the large paint mixing sticks from Home Depot work great as "train tracks" on both sides of the rolling pin. These sticks can be doubled if necessary for thicker slabs.

• Before using a rolling pin, it is helpful to gently pound the clay down to a thickness of about 1" by using the side of one's fist. Alternatively, one can throw the slab down on the table. Rather than throwing the clay straight down, it will stretch out into a longer slab if the motion of throwing the slab down is coupled with bringing the slab closer to one's body (arc motion with the arms). The slab can then be rotated and the motion repeated to even out the thickness of the slab.

• A cheap alternative to the traditional rolling pin is to cut lengths of PVC pipes which make for easy clean-up, as well.

• "Petting" slabs on both sides of the slab in 2 directions, either with one's fingers or a metal/rubber rib, can help increase the structural strength of the slab and reduce the chance of cracking.

• To slowly and evenly dry clay slabs from plastic to leatherhard so that they can better hold a form, slabs can be sandwiched between pieces of paper within a plastic container or bag for a few days. The paper will slowly draw out the moisture. Be careful not to leave the paper on the clay too long as this can encourage mold growth. To encourage a slab to maintain a specific form, slabs can also be draped over plastic molds and draped in plastic.

Ideal Consistency of Clay: Modeling or sculpting pieces either to make a sculpture or an addition to another form, can be done most easily with clay that is most malleable in the plastic stage. Sometimes, larger sculptures or additions require individual parts to be made separately and to then be allowed to dry to leatherhard before attaching them together for greater structural strength.

Joining Pieces: Modeling or sculpting pieces that are plastic do NOT require scratching and slipping when adding additions so long as the clay used is the exact same consistency. However, if the clay is leatherhard, any additional pieces added are leatherhard, or the form to which the sculpture will be attached is leatherhard, scratching and slipping both pieces, at the locations which they will join, MUST be scratched and slipped before sticking the two pieces together. Ideally, all parts of a sculpture or clay project are kept at the same stage of drying to prevent cracking. In the case of larger forms, such as a large pot, the base will sometimes be required to be leatherhard while the top additions are still plastic. However, the gradual gradation from leatherhard to plastic, in this case, can help prevent cracking caused when the two parts of a join are drying at different rates and pull apart from each other.

Word of Caution about Thickness : Sculptures should be no thicker than thumb thickness. If sculptures are thicker than one's thumb, the piece should be hollowed out evenly to a thickness of about 1/4" (pinkie thickness).

Promoting Even Drying: To promote even drying, at least 1 venting hole should be placed in the hollowed out form (often requiring a section of the piece to be strategically sliced off at a non-integral point of stability before being hollowed and reattached) AND (for more advanced work) "aerated" by making multiple pinhole sized holes in the interior of the sculpture that are about 1/8" deep and do NOT pierce through the piece.