Helpful Technical Infornation:

Technical Handout

How to dry your sculpture

Controlled drying using a cloth bath towel over the leather hard clay and covering this with light weight plastic will permit slow and even drying. An even dry out will prohibit cracking. It is up to you to control the dry out for the classroom has variable drafts and airflow.

Vinegar Paper Clay Patch/ Repair method.

Crush ½ cup of dried clay using a hammer. Use the clay you built with as the clay component for this recipe.
Take one sheet of toilet paper and rip into 1/4 inch X ¼ inch very small pieces. Soak in hot water until paper become pulp like. This can take 10 minutes. Remove water from pulp by squeezing and making paper into a little ball.
Add vinegar to the paper pulp. Then add clay and mix to a stiff paste. Add more dry clay to get really stuff but workable.
Mix ¾ of this patch with plastic clay. The patch needs to be stiff so add dry clay to make it stiffer if needed.
Wet crack with vinegar and sore until soupy. Compress patch into crevice . Pack it in well. Smooth out. Finally smooth with vinegar and a paint brush. Rib over area. Wrap and slowly dry. This may need to be repeated 2 -3 time depending upon nature of crack, and dryness of clay.

Some notes about Glaze

Glaze, is basically a clay and glass coating applied to bisque ware and fired to create the color and surface effects which complete your art work. The compatibility of form and surface color and design is a constant consideration in the Ceramic Arts. The options for use of glaze application techniques and glaze types are infinite and provide the completed aesthetic to the ceramic form.

Glaze application can be done by dipping, pouring, spraying, brushing (not recommended for most of our shop glazes), and or sponging onto the bisque clay surface. You will be taught how to achieve a good application using the spray gun.

It has been said there are no "bad' glazes. Poor results occur only through poor application of the glaze being used. Eighty per cent of the success rate in glazing is due to application. It is important to have an adequate thickness of the coating of glaze applied to the piece. On the average the glaze coating should be the thickness of a three by five card or approximately 1/32 of an inch. Thickness of applied glaze can be checked when the glaze dries completely
(an average time of about five minutes) by scratching through the glaze with your fingernail. This will reveal the thickness of the wall of glaze.

Glaze melts in the heat of the firing and flattens in a molten surface that clings to the clay form. Not an air temperature pigment, fired color and surface samples are necessary to practice and learn what application works best. Test tile samples are available to you in our glaze lab to aid in selecting surface, color and textures. However, it is best to test to see how your application works for the result might be different depending upon wall thickness, time within the glaze bucket, or thickness of the glaze itself.

The thickness of the glaze, itself, as well as the length of time that the ware is dipped or poured into or over the ware are two very important factors to notice. The thicker the walls of the clay form, the more glaze it will absorb. Conversely, thin walled pieces can become over saturated with the liquid glaze. This will cause thinner application and problems in drying the glaze on the surface. This information will be discussed in lecture in class. (Please take notes when this is described for each of the glazes you will be using).

Reference materials Glaze Videos by Robin Hopper (If requested these will be shown in class. Videos are available for overnight check out from the Fine Arts and Architecture library)