How To Use Ceramic Slips

They are generally the same thing slips are best applied to leatherhard greenware.

How to use ceramic slips.

Slips can have inclusions added such as grog or sand. Slip is just a liquid mixture of clay or a liquefied suspension of clay particles in the water and is generally a little thinner than a slurry. You can squeeze slip out of a bottle into designs slip trailing and use it for sgraffito coat with slip then scratch designs in the slip exposing the rawclay note. One way of decorating pottery is to use slip texturing.

Casting slips give extremely good properties for use as a drawing medium in a fine to medium aperture trailer. They can also simply include clumps of the same clay as the slip itself rather like lumps left in mashed potatoes. Slip trailing is perfect for your ceramic students who love to draw. Lana wilson uses texture and clay slip to decorate much of her work.

Although we usually think of slip as being fine textured and of an even consistency this doesn t have to be the case. With this technique students can create intricate designs and details using a precision bottle. The best part of this process is that if students make an error they can wipe away the wet clay and start again. Slip casting is liquified clay poured into a plaster mold the ratios are roughly 75 percent clay body to 25 percent water.

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. Sometimes decorating slips are called engobes and the terminology isn t tightly defined.