Ceramics I Flashcards
Chandler/Gilbert CC
Workability of the clay that allows it to bend without breaking or cracking.
Plasticity
Unglazed but fired ware, usually accomplished in a low temperature firing prior to the glaze fire.
Bisque or
Biscuit
When all the moisture has left the clay body.
Bone dry
Any slab or disk used as a base for throwing or hand building clay.
Bat
Finished leather-hard or bone-dry clay pieces not yet fired; raw ware.
Greenware
A combination of natural clays and non-plastics, especially formulated to have certain workability and firing characteristics.
Clay body
Clay that is in liquid suspension.
Slip
A furnace for firing clay, slumping glass, or melting enamels.
Kiln
Heat treatment of ceramic materials.
Firing
The stage the clay reaches from wet to dry when most of the moisture has evaporated but when carved the clay will come off in long strips, like cutting cheese. Also referred to as cheese hard
Leather hard
A crosshatch method of putting together coils, slabs, or other clay forms in the leather-hard stage; the same as luting.
Scoring
Kneading a mass of clay to expel air and make the mass homogeneous.
Wedging
Preliminary firing usually around cone 06 to harden the clay in preparation for the glaze application.
Bisque fire
A prepared slip that is a different color than the clay body, that is applied when the clay is wet, leather hard, bone dry or bisque.
Engobe
To clean the bottom of a glazed piece before firing.
Dry foot
A liquid suspension of finely ground minerals that is applied by brushing, pouring, dipping, or spraying, forming a glassy surface when melted in the kiln.
Glaze
The top edge of the vessel.
Lip
Another word for pottery in the raw, bisque or glaze state.
Ware
The art and science of forming objects of earth materials that contain alumna, silica and water all chemically combined, produced with heat.
Ceramics
To assume the nature of glass, particles of clay begin to melt and fuse together.
Vitreous
A decomposed granite-type rock with fine particles so that it will be plastic.
Clay
Clay lacking in plasticity.
Short
Hard dense, durable ware generally fired to 2150 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, with zero to five percent absorption.
Stoneware
The firing of a kiln with an atmosphere of insufficient oxygen, where combustion of the fuel used in firing is incomplete.
Reduction
Opposite of reducing fire; the firing of a kiln where combustion of the fuel is complete.
Oxidation
Small triangular objects compounded of clays to bend and melt at specific temperatures.
Pyrometric
Cones
A loosely used term often means earthenware or just any clay vessel that has been fired.
Pottery
Hard, dense, and durable ware generally fired to 2350 degrees Fahrenheit or above; white in color and when thin translucent, with zero percent absorption.
Porcelain
A tool used in throwing a pot to shape or straighten it: made of rubber, wood, plastic, or metal.
Rib
Breaking down clay or other ceramic materials in water.
Slaking
Refractory slabs, posts, and setters for supporting ware in the kiln.
Kiln furniture
Texture or quality of coarseness in a clay body; necessary in clay to make it lift and support weight in hand building; results from the addition of fine grog, and or any slightly coarse particles.
Tooth
The ring like base on a ceramic piece, bottom of the vessel.
Foot
A protective coating of 50% kaolin and 50% silica, applied to kiln furniture to keep excess glaze from fusing.
Kiln Wash
A dull surfaced glaze with no gloss that is smooth and pleasant to the touch.
Mat or matt
An instrument for measuring high temperatures.
Pyrometer
The quality of resisting the effects of high temperatures.
Refractory
Two-pronged devise used to measure inside and outside diameters.
Calipers
A kiln where the flue gases exit at the bottom of the kiln.
Down draft
A kiln where the flue gases exit at the top of the kiln.
Up draft
A term used for any free spinning circular turntable.
Banding wheel
A low temperature clay body with a permeable or porous body after firing to its maturity with 10 to 15 percent absorption.
Earthenware
A hand method of forming pottery by building up the walls with rope like rolls of clay.
Coiling
The temperature and time that a clay body develops the desirable characteristics of maximum nonporosity and hardness.
Maturity
A hole placed in the kiln through which one can observe the cones or the process of combustion.
Peephole
A horizontal machine with blades for mixing clay.
Pug mill
A broken fragment of pottery.
Shard
Decoration achieved by scratching through a colored slip to show the contrasting body color beneath.
Sgraffito
The widest part of the vessel that is above the foot and below the shoulder.
Belly
Polishing with a smooth stone or tool on leather-hard clay or slip to make a surface sheen. Low-fired (the surface will not stay shiny at temperatures above 2000 degrees F)
Burnishing
A method of decorating, using a slip or glaze squeezed out of a rubber syringe.
Trailing
Pure clay also known as china clay.
Al O3 2SiO2 6H2O
Kaolin
Tube like single chamber hill climbing kiln.
Anagama
Pushing a mass of clay on center with the centrifugal motion of a potter’s wheel.
Centering
Depressed surface decoration, the reverse of bas-relief.
Intaglio
Multi-chambered hill climbing kiln.
Noborigama
Carved decoration in leather-hard clay, covered with an engobe and ribbed off when drier, leaving engobe inlaid in the carving.
Mishima
In his book “A Potters Book” he presents an argument that pottery is a fine art.
Bernard Leach
He used the medium of clay to make his abstract expressionistic art. This liberated many functional potters to express themselves without the consideration of function.
Peter Voulkos
A group of Indians in Southwestern U.S.A. who made a unique contribution to clay art from A.D.900 to 1200.
Mimbres
The cutting of rhythmical grooves in a vessel.
Fluting
Cut or paddled vessels with flat sides.
Faceting
Cutting holes in a design on a vessel.
Piercing
Extraordinarily fine clay particles suspended in water that shines when applied as a coating and fired at low temperatures.
Terra Sigillata
The oxide that gives the color green.
Chrome
The oxide that gives the color blue.
Cobalt
The oxide that gives the color brown and sometimes green.
Red iron oxide
The oxide that gives the color green or red.
Copper
A tin opacified glaze with a glossy surface, usually white, a base for colored stain overglaze decoration originating in Spain on the isle Majolica in the 15* century and later copied by the Dutch in the 16h century and the French in the 181 century.
Majolica, Delft,
Faience ware
A firing or a type of ware; porous groggy ware, with or without a glaze, put into and pulled out of a hot fire.
Raku
Wax, varnish, latex, or other substance applied in pattern on a surface to cover an area while the background is treated with another material or color.
Resist
Traditionally, rock salt is thrown into the fire at the maturing temperature of the clay until an orange-peel textured clear glaze appears.
Salt glaze
“Deceptive” portrayal of an objecting; making something unreal look as real as possible. Literally means to fool the
Trompe L’Oeil
An art historian’s term for low-fired, unglazed generally red-colored ware.
Terracotta
Trimming a piece in leather-hard condition on a wheel. Term used for throwing in some cultures and in the southern United States.
Turning
The process of forming pieces on a revolving potter’s wheel from solid lumps of clay into hollow forms.
Throwing
A material that lowers the melting point of Alumina and Silica.
Flux
Extremely fine-grained, plastic, sedimentary clay that is added to clay bodies to make them more plastic.
Ball clay
Separation of glaze coating during firing, which exposes areas of unglazed clay caused by too heavy of an application.
Crawling
An undesirable and excessive crackle in the glaze, which penetrates through the glaze to the clay body.
Crazing
