Throwing & Hand Building

Ceramics for Beginners: Hand Building

Ceramics are always popular with crafters, and hand building with low-fire earthenware is a natural place to start. With its wealth of information and images, elegant design, and time-tested advice this beautiful new book by artist Shay Amber will inspire even the most intimidated beginner. Just as in her celebrated workshops, Amber guides would-be ceramists through all the basics, from selecting the right clay body to embellishing the surface with fabulous decorations and gorgeous glaze treatments to setting a firing temperature. She teaches how to pinch forms, create coils, make flat slabs, work with simple molds and armatures, and ornament your piece with stencils, slips, underglazes, terra sigillata, and more. Each technique is laid out in easy-to-follow step-by-step photos with projects in progress and stunning gallery images. Amber introduces a unique, easy-to-follow method for constructing a beautiful slab-built piece, and all the necessary templates are included. A dozen projects—including a pinched Tea Bowl, coil-built Espresso Cup Set, and luminous Lantern showcase the key methods. Comprehensive and accessible, this illustrated introduction will become the standard on the potter's bookshelf.

Throwing & Handbuilding: Forming Techniques

Throwing and handbuilding are at the core of all studio ceramics techniques. Through imagination and experimentation, some of the most skilled artists and craftsmen can take these basic techniques and often produce extremely creative works of art. With practice and patience, the coil pot or tall narrow form can become works of art suitable for galleries and collectors.

Throwing & Handbuilding: Forming Techniques is a collection of carefully selected feature articles from Ceramics Monthly and Pottery Making Illustrated, the two most widely read ceramics arts publications in the world. Within each section of the book you'll discover challenging, complex and unusual techniques, oftentimes extensively illustrated, by some of the foremost studio artists working today. By mastering new techniques and discovering inspirational works of contemporary masters, you'll soon find yourself challenged to take new directions in your work.