Making Slip For Ceramics

I always use wet clay to make slip.

Making slip for ceramics.

Let it slake for 24 hours then mix it by hand a little with a stick figure 2. The slip is poured into the mold and the water is absorbed leaving a layer of clay deposited from the slip. Make sure your slip is made from the same clay you re working with. You can use an underglaze pencil to write the 2 or scratch it into the leather hard clay.

I never use bone dry clay. It may be either solid cast where the form is filled with the new clay object or hollow cast where the new object is deposited around a hollow center from which the remaining slip. Lana wilson uses texture and clay slip to decorate much of her work. For storing slip i like the 16 oz.

Make a batch of slip out of the same clay body and add a small percentage of stain say 2. Plastic containers with screw on lids that come in packs of 2 from the dollar tree. I save all of my little scraps of clay put them in a gallon size plastic bag and when i have enough clay i make slip. The process of slaking clay to make it into slip is a simple one.

Once you ve mixed the slip for about 5 minutes use a. Then submerging the dry clay in water so that it breaks down and dissolves. Like liked by 1 person. The gravity ratio is measured by the hydrometer and it tells you the amount of water in relationship to the amount of.

The mold is opened and the clay object is removed. It s a a lot of fun to do washes of color on textured surfaces leaving concentrations of the glaze or ceramic colorants in the recesses but sometimes when the clay slip or glaze is washed off the color loses its vibrancy. Step one is to have a 5 gallon bucket filled 60 75 with your bone dry clay then add water until it s a few inches below the rim figure 1. The basics of making slip for clay involves breaking pieces of bone dry clay into small parts.

The dissolved clay is then blended into the water to make a smooth suspension. Paint a strip of this slip mixture onto the tile and write on the tile that this is a 2 mixture. Every once in a while i spray water in the plastic bag so the clay doesn t get dry. First some basic information about making your slip.