Ceramics Vocabulary

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Across
  1. 3. A piece of clay rolled like a rope, used in making pottery.
  2. 8. Method of shaping clay by inserting a thumb into the center of a ball of wedged clay and lightly pinching with the thumb on the insides and fingers on the outside while slowly rotating the ball.
  3. 10. Pressed or rolled flat sections of clay used in hand building.
  4. 12. This is the technique of pressing forms into the clay to get decorative effects.
  5. 14. A framework/structure that a sculpture is molded around with clay.
  6. 17. A method of joining two pieces of clay together. First, score making deep scratches in the surfaces that will be joined. Then wet the surface with slip. Press the two pieces together making sure they are securely stuck.
  7. 18. Unfired pottery. Very fragile at this first drying stage. Ready to be bisque fired.
  8. 20. To manipulate clay with fingers in your palm into a hollow shape.
  9. 21. This is the process of heating the pottery to a specified temperature in a large oven called a kiln in order to bring about a particular change in the clay or the surface.
  10. 22. A form of decoration made by scratching through a surface.
  11. 23. A furnace of refractory clay used for firing pottery and for fusing glass.
  12. 24. The joining/smoothing of damp or leatherhard clay pieces.
  13. 26. Decomposed granite and other earthen materials (alumina + silica + water).
  14. 27. First firing, without glaze.
  15. 29. The process of “kneading” the clay (without folding and trapping air) to make the moisture level even and to remove air bubbles that cause explosions in the kiln.
  16. 30. The final firing, with glaze.
  17. 31. The quality of clay that allows it to be manipulated into different shapes without cracking.
Down
  1. 1. Pottery that has been fired once, without glaze.
  2. 2. Clay that is dry enough to hold its shape without distortion, yet moist enough to be further trimmed, carved, burnished or scored.
  3. 4. Plastic (wet/workable clay), Leatherhard (partially dry), Greenware (completely dry & ready to be bisque fired), Bisque (first firing), Glaze (final firing).
  4. 5. Liquid clay made from water and clay.
  5. 6. There are three basic stages of dryness of greenware: wet (plastic - plastic clay will not crack or break), leatherhard (slightly damp), and bone-dry (no moisture).
  6. 7. Greenware that has been fired once without glaze.
  7. 9. A machine for mixing clay and recycling clay.
  8. 11. A thin coating of glass. An impervious silicate coating that is developed in clay ware by the fusion under heat of inorganic materials (silica/sand).
  9. 13. Creating ceramic forms on the potter’s wheel.
  10. 15. In this technique, flat slabs of clay are pressed into molds in order to create various shapes or forms.
  11. 16. A flat disc made out of plaster, wood, or plastic. Bats are used to throw pieces on the potter’s wheel.
  12. 19. Building pottery projects using only the hands and tools (pinch, coil, slab).
  13. 20. A device with either a manual (foot powered) or electric rotating wheel
  14. 25. Technique to move the clay in a symmetrical rotating axis in the middle of a wheel head so you can throw it.
  15. 27. A revolving wheel head which sits on a pedestal base. It is turned by hand and used for finishing or decorating pottery.
  16. 28. Building ceramic forms by rolling out coils or ropes of clay and joining them together by blending with the fingers or scoring with a tool.