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How to Handbuild with Clay: Pinching, Coiling and Slabbing
Hand-building is one of the oldest ceramic techniques, dating back thousands of years, when early potters shaped clay without the use of a wheel. Today, these methods remain popular for creating unique, handcrafted pottery.
This guide explores three fundamental techniques: pinching, coiling and slabbing. You’ll learn how to shape clay by hand, layer coils to build height and form, create flat slabs for tiles, plates, or sculptural pieces!
Step by step - Let's Create
Pinching
Pinching is a way of shaping clay by pressing and pinching out your ball of clay using your thumb and fingers. First, roll out a clump of clay and wedge it into a ball.
Next, press your thumb into the centre of the ball
Begin to pinch out the walls of your clay pot to the thickness and size required.
Smooth out the outside and inside of the clay to give a neat finish.
Coiling
Coiling is shaping clay by rolling out long ‘sausage like’ coils, which can then be joined together to form a structure. You can add to a pinch pot to give it height and add to its shape. First, prepare your coils by rolling out long pieces of clay.
Place a coil on the top of your pinch pot around the edge, and gently, using your thumb and fingers, blend the first coil on the inside and outside of the pot.
Continue to add coils on top of each other and blend as in the previous step. If your coils are not quite long enough, use up any small pieces of clay and smooth them together.
Once you are happy with the shape of our pot, ensure you have a smooth surface on the inside and outside.
Slabbing
A clay slab is a piece of clay rolled or flattened into a sheet. They can be made by using a rolling pin or slab roller. Wedge a piece of clay and roll out your slab to the desired size. You can use rolling guides to help get an even thickness
Cut out a square slab (approx 10 x 10cm), which can then be used to make structures such as plates, tiles or pots. Impress into your slab using impression stamps or pattern rolling pins.
