Slab-Built Appetizer Plates

What is slab-building?

It is a hand-building technique, where slabs of clay are rolled evenly to a certain thickness. They can be cut in to various shapes, folded or manipulated to form a finished form.

Slab building breaks the monotony of wheel throwing for me. Clay rolled out, cut roughly into circles and then shaped on moulds till leather hard and then carved on.

In this set of four plates, I applied glaze only on the carvings and left the plate bare. It was reduction fired which gives the bare clay a toasty brown color.

In these appetizer plates, I applied strokes of two colored slips (liquid clay with colored pigments) and carved patterns on them.

They were glazed with a translucent Celadon Blue.

A porcelain slip on dark clay and then carved paisleys.

The carvings have a Blue Black Celadon glaze to highlight the paisleys and a translucent Celadon Blue on the whole plate.