January 6, 2023

A Brief of the Ceramic Process

Did you know that making pottery from start to finish takes several weeks or more? There are several ways to shape and decorate your clay. We will go step by step through everything it takes to make a pot.

Clay is a natural resource that is mined from the earth and processed. Once processed it can be made into useful objects and beautiful things. Clay goes on an amazing journey from being dirt in the ground to pottery on your table.

Preparing The Clay

Before shaping the clay, the potter needs to prepare the clay. This involves a process called wedging. Wedging is often likened to kneading because it involves pushing the clay on a work surface like kneading dough. The purpose of wedging is to remove air bubbles from the clay and give it an even consistency. Wedging improves the consistency of the clay by removing hard and soft patches in it. 

 

Shaping the Clay

These are main techniques that potters usually choose from.

  • Wheel Throwing
  • Slabing
  • Coiling
  • Pinching
  • Molds

Leather Hard and Drying the Clay

The first or early stage of leather hard clay is often called ‘soft leather hard’. This is when the clay still contains enough moisture so that it can be bent without cracking or breaking. This is also a good stage to join pieces of clay.  The clay contains enough moisture so that pieces bond together well. Leather Hard clay is the best time to adding the handles, burnishing clay, decorating, applying underglaze and carving.

After the clay dries out (we call it “bone dry”) it will start to become paler and develop a slightly dusty surface. Being bone dry is one of the very last stages that the clay goes through before it is fired in the kiln. We reach to bone dry clay at almost 1 week

 

Bisque Fire ( firing the clay first)

The next step to create pottery that is stronger than bone-dry clay and won’t dissolve in water is to fire it in the ceramic kiln. The difference is that they heat up to a much higher temperature than a domestic oven. It is around 800 °C – 900 °C and it takes almost 9-10 hours. To take the ceramics out the kiln, we need to wait almost a day to cooling.

Glazing

Although bisqueware is stronger than unfired clay, it is also still porous. Whilst it doesn’t dissolve in water, it does absorb water easily. The glazing process is often one of the final stages of clay.  It can be applied as dipping, pouring, painting, spraying.

The liquid glaze dries quickly on the bisqueware to form a powder coating. This pottery is then fired a second time. During this second ‘glaze firing’ the glaze melts on the surface of the pottery. When the kiln cools the glaze becomes solid again and forms a glassy coating.

Glaze firing temperatures depends on the clay and glaze type as earthenware, stoneware and  porcelain. This firing process takes long time as 9 hours and waiting to cooling for a day.

Results and the Final

Of course, the clay goes through lots of changes between each of these stages.