All about Ceramics. Flashcards
Vocabulary
What is a Ceramic?
It has to do with clay or glass or the making of objects from clay or glass.
What is a Slip?
It’s is clay that has been watered down; acts as glue in slip/score technique. Slip a fine, liquid form of clay applied to the surface of a vessel prior to firing. Slip fills in pores and gives uniform color.
What’s Score?
It has to do with drawing or making lines into clay.
What is the Slip/Score technique?
It is the method used in hand building to connect two pieces of clay together.
What is Wedging?
It is the process of kneading the clay so as to remove air pockets and create uniform consistency of clay.
What’s the Coil method?
It is one of the oldest methods of forming pottery. Long strands of clay which are laid on top of each other and joined through blending coil to coil. Coil pieces can be almost any shape and any size.
What is Stoneware?
Stoneware is high-fired clay. Stoneware is waterproof even without glaze; the resulting ware is sturdier than earthenware.
What’s a Slab?
A slab is a flattened piece of clay; you may use a rolling pin or slab roller to achieve a slab of clay. Clay slabs are cut to shape and joined together using scoring and wet clay called slip. Slabs can be draped or over into forms, rolled around cylinders or built-up into geometric forms. Large forms are difficult because of stresses on the seams and because the slab naturally sags. Some potters get around this by working fibers into the clay body. The fibers burn out during the firing, leaving a network of tiny holes.
What’s Bone Dry?
Bone Dry is one of the stages of dryness, where clay is completely dried but not yet fired.
What is Greenware?
Greenware is a term to describe unfired clay objects in general.
What’s Bisque Ware?
Bisque ware is a clay object that has been fired for the first time and without any glaze applied to them.
What is Glaze Ware?
Glaze ware is bisque ware that has been glazed then fired.
What is a Fettling Knife?
A fettling knife is a special knife-like tool with a fairly flexible blade for cutting into moist and leather-hard clay.
What’s a Loop Tool?
A loop tool is a special kind of tool with a wooden handle and a wire loop at one or both ends, used for carving and hollowing out clay forms.
What is Sprigging-On?
Sprigging-on is a term used to describe the technique of adding small clay forms as decoration on the surface of pottery forms; also called applied decoration.
What’s Incising?
Incising is a decoration technique, created by carving lines into clay or carving small areas out of the clay but not perforating it.
What’s a Kiln?
A kiln is a furnace designed specifically for heating clay to the temperatures necessary to make it permanently hard and stone like. Kilns can be electric, natural gas, wood, coal, fuel oil or propane. Materials used to heat the kiln can affect the work: wood ash can build up on the surfaces of a piece and form a glaze at high temperatures. Some potters introduce chemicals into the kiln to influence the effect of the firing. Famed ceramist Beatrice Wood achieved a luster effect by throwing moth balls into the kiln.
What is an Element?
An element is the heating coils of an electric kiln. (Tired or burned-out elements refer to elements which carry too little or no electrical current for producing heat).
What’s Footing?
Footing is the bottom of a piece that rests upon a surface (may be wheel thrown or hand-built). There are two kinds: raised and flush.
What’s Firing?
Firing is clay hardened by heating it to a high temperature, fusing the clay particles. Primitive pottery is usually fired on the ground or in pits with whatever flammable material is available. Kilns allow a more efficent use of materials and move control over the atmosphere during a firing. Firing has two basic atmospheres. Oxidation and Reduction, these two atmospheres will affect the color of thye final piece.
What is Glaze?
Glaze is glass-forming chemicals, usually with colorants added, that applied in liquid form to bisque ware and fired in a kiln, form a pleasing, usually glossy coating to the surface of the clay. Glaze can be colored, opaque, translucent, or matte.
What’s Slip Caly?
It’s clay in liquid form.
What is a Bat?
A bat is a plaster disk or slab for clay work.
What is a Casting?
A casting is a clay form made from a mold. May also be referred to “plaster castings”.
