Ceramics Glossary: Techniques, Elements, and More
Ceramics Glossary
Clay & Stages
1. Clay: A very fine-grained soil that is plastic when moist but hardens when fired and can be molded by hand.
2. Slab: A building technique using a flattened sheet of clay to create a tile or form.
3. Scoring: To rough up the surface of soft clay before joining to another piece. Slip is applied onto scoring marks.
4. Slip: Has a glue-like quality; a wet and soupy form of clay used to join pieces of clay together. Color can also be added to use as surface decoration on unfired clay.
3. Plastic: Clay that has a high moisture content, is flexible, and easily sculpted. (1st stage)
4. Leather Hard: Clay that has begun to lose its moisture and is less flexible. Clay can still be attached. (2nd stage)
5. Bone Dry: The final stage of clay before the first firing. It has lost most of the moisture. Cannot add new clay. (3rd stage)
6. Greenware: Any stage of clay that has not been fired in the kiln: plastic, leather hard, or bone dry.
7. Bisqueware: Clay that has been fired once and all water has been removed. (4th stage of clay)
8. Glazeware: Clay that has been glazed and fired for the second time. (5th stage of clay)
Techniques & Tools
1. Pinch Pot: One of the earliest known techniques used to create pottery or a bowl using a pinching method.
2. Glaze: A chemically formulated solution that becomes glass-like when applied to bisque ware after it is fired.
9. Kiln: A furnace made of refractory materials that withstand extremely high temperatures to fire clay.
10. Coil: A snake-like rolled-out piece of clay that is used to build a vase or other structure.
11. Wedging: To knead (push) clay in a spiral motion to get rid of air bubbles.
1. Grog: Sand or crushed clay that is added to clay, making it stronger.
2. Stencil: A cut-out from a piece of paper dampened and placed on greenware in order to glaze with underglaze to create a silhouette design.
7. Bat: A circular piece of wood that can be placed on a wheel for wheel-thrown projects or any shaped wood or plaster to place wheel-thrown projects on.
8. Toggle: A tool to cut large pieces of clay, made from wire or a strong type of string such as fishing wire.
9. Foot: What the bottom of a bowl, plate, or any wheel-thrown project is called when it is trimmed.
10. Trimming: Using a loop tool to remove extra clay on the bottom of a wheel-thrown project and to create a foot.
6. Burnishing: Rubbing a smooth stone with water on bone-dry clay to create a glossy finish without using overglaze. Can be done over underglaze. (ex: Maria Martinez pottery)
Elements of Art
5. Line: A mark made by a tool and is often defined as a moving dot. A line’s length is usually longer than its width.
6. Texture: The surface quality of an artwork, which can be seen or felt.
7. Value: The darkness and lightness of a color in an artwork.
8. Shape: Is a 2-dimensional area that is contained within a line or filled with color. It is always flat.
9. Form: A 3-dimensional aspect of an object that takes up space. It has mass and volume. Forms have 3 dimensions: length, width, and depth.
10. Color: Depends on light because it is made of light. It has three properties: Hue, Intensity, and Value.
11. Space: The emptiness or area around, inside, above, and below an object. It is the object that takes up space and the negative space around it.
Color Theory
4. Primary Colors: These are three colors that cannot be created but are used to make other colors. They are red, blue, and yellow.
5. Secondary Colors: Three colors that can be mixed/made from two primary colors: green, orange, violet.
Art Criticism & Aesthetics
4 Steps of Art Criticism:
- Description: Explaining the basic things you see in an artwork. 1st step in art criticism.
- Analysis: Explaining in detail what you see in an artwork using the elements of art vocabulary. 2nd step in art criticism.
- Interpretation: What you think the artist is trying to communicate with their artwork. What the possible meaning is. 3rd step.
- Judgment: Your opinion of the artwork after you have gone through the first 3 steps. 4th step.
5. Functional: Artwork that has a useful purpose, such as a bowl, vase, or plate.
6. Nonfunctional: Artwork that has no useful purpose other than to be appreciated as art (decoration).
7. Concave: Part of an artwork that goes inward or is dented in on purpose.
8. Convex: Part of an artwork that protrudes (pops) outward.
9. Aesthetics: A branch of philosophy discussing the nature of beauty, art, and taste. Asking the questions, what is beautiful and why?
Other Terms
10. Armature: A frame around which a structure is built over. A support structure.
3. Medium: The material used to create an artwork or sculpture, such as clay, paint, pencil, metal, etc. Media is the plural.