a new approach

Except for the first three weeks of the very first ceramics class I took, I've always been a wheel throwing potter, but this week I tried my hand at some slab work. My teachers, Michael Hunt and Naomi Dalglish, do lot's of slab work and this week demonstrated some of their techniques. Now, where I work (Laura Zindel Ceramics) I roll slabs for platters and dishes, but this week I learned a new way to make slabs by slicing up a big chunk of clay creating five or six slabs at a time.
This tall bottle is about ten or eleven inches tall and it's pretty wonky. The right angles from my sketch turned into odd angles in the actual piece, but overall I was pleased with this one.

Next, I tried a flat but round form seen here.





Once the piece was leather-hard I brushed on an iron-bearing slip that will fire dark under the lighter white slip then carved through it to make the design.