Coil Construction

Well for my coil construction I made a combination technique using coils and slab. The first thing I did was I formed the plate using a slab. I took a handful of clay and started wedging it and then put it in the slab roller. After making a slab I looked for a circular object so I can use it to form my plate.  After forming my plate i put aside and placed it in a plastic bowl so my plate can form a higher edge. I set it out for two days so it can harden a little bit. After the clay got leather-hard I went and started to use a wooden knife to make my plate bigger because the plate was still too small. Next, I placed tissue under my plate because I was going to wet a little bit and I didn’t want my plate to get stuck on the bowl. Then after forming the plate using slabs I used coils to make decorations.

                So, the first thing I did was I got a lot of clay and started wedging it. After finishing I went to the clay extruder and started making clay. It gave me a little amount of coils, but it was okay because I was going to make it into a smaller coil. Once I got all my coils, I started to wet and it and started to make the coil thinner. After making it thinner I started cutting the coils about a 2 inch and made at least 8-9 pieces of small coils. I am going to use this coils at the edge of my plate, so it can have more depth into it as well as height. Then, I started to slip and score all the edges of the coils and the plates edges. This was the tricky part because it was so hard for the coils to stick to the plate. But I kept putting a lot of slip so it won’t come off from the plate. My plate was still missing something because it still looked plain so, I decided to use my leftover coils and started to make a spiral decoration out of them. After making the spiral decoration I started carving the inside of the plate. By carving the plate I can put my spiral decoration on it. I had to slip and score the spiral decorations unto the plate. I carve the surface of the plate because I didn’t want the coil spiral decoration to be uneven with the plate’s surface. I only put three spiral decorations in the plate because putting more will look ugly and I still wanted to show a smooth surface. I liked how my coil construction turned out. The hardest thing that I hate about the coil construction is actually making the coils because it takes a lot of time.

The glaze technique i used was i dip the plate in the mustard glaze. As a result of trying to get the glaze from the bottom of the plate, i unfortunately broke one  of the tip of the plate.