Coil Pot Process (February 3, 2015)

Okay, so for the past few classes, I have been working on a coil pot. First, I had to create a base. I used a rolled up slab of clay. After that, I used a plastic bowl and used a needle tool to trace around it. Then, I started to roll out my coils. I'm a fussy person that likes my coils to be smooth, so I would spend quite some time rolling them out. And if I see cracks in it, I try to patch it up as soon as possible. Anyways, over the span of two classes, I rolled out 2 coils, attached them, and used the extruder to also "squeeze" out a really long coil. Well how do you attach coils onto the base or onto other coils? It's not very difficult. First, you have to cut out the desired length of your coil. Then, using either a needle tool or fork (I prefer the needle tool), mark up (score) both the base/coil and the coil you want to put on. That way, the clay can stick together better. Then, use some slip and spread it along the marked up areas. Place the coils together, and smooth the inside part of the pot to make it more sturdy. That's pretty much it. With the coil from the extruder, I looped it. I plan on putting balls of clay in the holes. Sadly, the extruder is broken (again), and I was back to rolling out my own coils. Fortunately, I was able to get one coil out of it. The next class, when I took my pot out of the bag, I noticed cracks along the pot. I think the cracks formed because of the moisture. The base is not sturdy enough, so when I carried it , I may have pushed the base upward, causing the crack. Anyways, I rolled out two thinner coils and twisted them together to form a braid-like thing. I wanted to make a braid out of three coils, but it was difficult to get the coils thin, as I am not very experienced with clay. Two coils turned out okay, but there were cracks along the areas that I bent. I'm pretty sure that my hands dried the clay out as I rolled it. So, I "patched" the holes up with wet clay. Sorry, I don't have a picture of that yet. I scored and slipped that onto the coil. So right now, I have 3 layers. I plan on making 5 more layers. The number of layers depends on the speed I will work at and the time I have.