Birds and Trays

Purpose: To learn about how to shape and texture clay; to learn how to glaze and underglaze.

Some reasons I think we were told to make these ceramic pieces were so that we could get the feel for how to work with clay, how to work with textures, underglazes, and glazes. Overall what I learned about clay construction is that smoothing, shaping, and texturing are very crucial to the whole process. When you first take the clay from the bag, it’s very wet and delicate and hard to make a smooth shape out of without accidentally smashing it. I also learned that before calling it done you could wait a day or so to give it time to get to the plastic feeling stage before fully smoothing it out. That makes it easier to finalize the shape without messing up the whole thing. I also found out that texturing is easier at that plastic feeling stage because you don’t have to be as careful with the pressure you’re using on the clay.

A few things I learned about glazing could be that underglaze doesn't stick to other things when the ceramics piece is being fired in the kiln. Unlike top glaze that does drip down the sides and can easily stick to other pieces or the surface that the clay is on when being fired. Underglaze is a glazing technique that can be brushed over a spot with texture, then you can wipe it away with a wet sponge. That way, the only glazed part left will be the textured spaces. WIth regular glazes, you have to be extremely careful before placing your clay pieces in the kiln because like I said before the glaze will stick to other things in the kiln, so wipe the bottoms of your ceramic pieces with a wet sponge before firing them.