Question:
What is Leatherhard ?
Drying stages
Ceramic slip (clay) goes through the stages of wet, leather-hard and dry.
Simple slab pieces
Try rolling a simple slab, approx 1/2" thick, use a cookie cutter, to cut out shapes, decorate with underglaze, then finish with clear glaze. The variations to this are endless, you could draw a design onto some paper, then using carbon paper, trace it onto the clay and use it as your template to cut around, this is particularly good, as you have the lines to follow for your decoration. You can add pieces of clay to build a texture, or accentuate a piece with a later lustre firing. The object of the exercise is to let your head go, and have fun with it. The recipient will be pleased you made the effort!!!
Leatherhard
Leatherhard means that the greenware has dried to the point where it is firm but not void of visual water.
Timing your work
Usually we can only do so much to a form until we need to let it dry a bit in order to finish it. Clay dries to a point where it becomes stiff but still has a somewhat malleable surface. This is what we call the leather hard state. Leather hard clay retains the wet clay color and will yield when gouged or scraped with a fingernail. At this stage the clay is firm enough to handle but not as fragile as when it's fully dry, so it's usually best to finish or refine when the piece is leather hard. Finishing means cleaning up seams, surfaces, and edges to give our work a polished look. Sloppy joints, leftover scoring marks, and jagged cut edges are the stuff of which Cs and Ds are made. Coarsely treated clay can be quite expressive and appealing, but if you choose to work this way be aware that there is a very fine line between being spontaneous and being a slob. If you're not sure what the difference is, keep your work clean for now and come back to explore this later.
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| Guru Spotlight |
| Patricia Walters-Fischer |
