Description
Pre-Requisites: Clay Basics: slipping and scoring, familiarity with ceramics studio safety
This intermediate to advanced ceramics course is designed for students interested in expanding their practice through image-based surface design techniques. Open to both wheel throwers and handbuilders, the course focuses on applying monoprinting and transfer processes to clay rather than foundational forming techniques.
Students will learn to design and format imagery for toner resist decals, as well as create hand-painted underglaze transfers using newsprint. These methods allow for the incorporation of photographic, text-based, and hand-drawn imagery onto both slab-built and wheel-thrown surfaces.
Participants will work with slabs, applying imagery at optimal stages of dryness before forming or constructing pieces. Slabs will be used to create mugs through template-based construction, while students who already throw are encouraged to bring in wheel-thrown forms to explore surface application. Class time will emphasize surface development, timing, and integration with form.
Surface treatments will be enhanced using oxides and finished with cone 6 clear glaze firings, highlighting texture and layered imagery. By the end of the course, students will complete a cohesive set of mugs or related forms and develop strategies for incorporating these techniques into their individual studio practice.
***If time allows, I would love to review wheel methods and provide demos to students interested in learning the wheel who are more comfortable with hand building.
By the end of this 6-week course, students will:
- Demonstrate improved proficiency in wheel throwing and/or handbuilding techniques
- Design and format imagery for successful toner resist decals
- Create and use templates for slab-built forms, including their application in surface design and printing
- Create and apply toner resist decals and hand-painted underglaze transfers
- Understand how to prepare and use slabs for effective image transfer
- Integrate surface design with three-dimensional form
- Experiment with oxides and clear glaze to enhance texture and imagery
- Develop and complete a cohesive set of mugs that reflects both technical and conceptual growth
- Explore how monoprinting and transfer techniques can expand their individual studio practice.
Students Should Bring:
- Laptop, tablet, or smartphone (for sourcing and preparing imagery)
- Sketchbook and pencils/pens for imagery development
- Apron and towel
- Any preferred clay tools
Age Limit: 14; Supervision may be required.
