Ceramics: Techniques, Vocabulary, and Art Criticism
1. Clay: a very fine-grained soil that is plastic when moist but hardens when fired & can be molded by hand. 2. Slab: a building technique using a flattened down 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 & soupy form of clay used to join pieces of clay together. Color can also be added to use as surface decoration on unfired clay. 7 Elements of Art: 5. Line: a mark made by a tool, & 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 dark & light 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 & volume. Forms have 3 dimensions: length, width & depth. 10. Color: depends on light because it is made of light. It has 3 properties: Hue, intensity & value. 11. Space: the emptiness or area around, inside, above, & below an object. It is the object that takes up space & the negative space around it. Vocab 2 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. 3. Plastic: clay that has a high moisture content, is flexible, & easily sculpted. (1st stage) 4. Leather Hard: clay that has begun to lose its moisture & is less flexible. Clay can still be attached. (2nd stage) 5. Bone Dry: the final stage of clay before the 1st firing. It has lost most of the moisture. Cannot add new clay. (3rd stage) 6. Greenware: one 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 & all water has been removed. (4th stage of clay) 8. Glazeware: clay that has been glazed & fired for the 2nd time. (5th stage of clay) 9. Kiln: a furnace made of refractory materials that withstand extremely high temperatures to fire clay. 10. Coil: a snakelike 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. Vocab 3 4 Steps of Art Criticism:1. Description: explaining the basic things you see in an artwork. 1st step in art criticism 2. Analysis: explaining in detail what you see in an artwork using the elements of art vocabulary. 2nd step in art criticism 3. Interpretation: what you think the artist is trying to communicate with their artwork. What the possible meaning is. 3rd step 4. 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, & taste. Asking the questions, what is beautiful & why? 10. Armature: a frame around which a structure is built over. A support structure. Vocab 4 1. Grog: sand or crushed clay that goes into clay, making clay stronger. 2. Stencil: a cut out from a piece of paper dampened & placed on greenware in order to glaze with underglaze to create a silhouette design.
3. Medium (Medio): the material used to create an artwork or sculpture such as clay, paint, pencil, metal, etc. Media is the plural. 4. Primary Colors: these are 3 colors that cannot be created, but are used to make other colors. They are red, blue & yellow. 5. Secondary Colors: 3 colors that can be mixed/made from 2 primary colors: green, orange, violet. 6. Burnishing: rubbing a smooth with water on bone dry clay to create a glossy finish without using overglaze. Can be done over underglaze. (ex: Maria Martinez pottery) 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. Plastic is the most enjoyable state of clay to work in. Glaze is chemically formulated & paint is not. Wedging is important to remove air bubbles. Pinch pot is creating a ball & pinching it to make it into a bowl. Too much water will make the project weaker. Tools to use for scoring is a scoring rib or needle tool. Maria Martinez is known for her Black on Black ceramics. Hand building in ceramics is sculpting. EHS is using GAS. A Kiln is different from an oven because a kiln is made out of a special material & it can withstand high levels of heat. Vessel = container. Kiln firings = 2. Red Grooms is the artist who makes kid-friendly sculptures that can be touched and even walked on. Opposite of glossy glaze is matte. Glaze doesn’t look like what’s in the bottle because it’s chemically made. Non-functional art is the jack-o-lantern and coil vessel. 3 things important about wheel throwing are wedging, coning, centering. Kilns are made out of refractory. Best stage to attach slabs of clay is leather hard. 2 things that may cause a project to explode are air bubbles and rapid heating.Tools: rib-metal and wood toggle-clay cutting tool, needle tool, sponge, loop tool Earthenware: more powdery soft look, porous, fired at low temperatures (our clay-red & white) Stoneware: textured look as if it has sand on it, nonporous, and heavier high fired clay.
TERRACOTTA CHINESE ARMY all the pottery warriors and horses were made using local clay in China, then baked in a kiln 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, and are currently armoring more statues. RED (CHARLES) GROOMS 1937 – alive His work has a lot of humor “Sculpto puto rama” Even then I had that left-handed quality that is still in my style”,