Making and decorating pots

Making a pot – A brief overview 1. Clay prepared 2. Pot thrown on potters wheel then turned 3. Individual pieces dry then glued together with slip. 4. Pot burnished and a coat of slip applied then burnished. 5. Decoration planned on paper, then transferred to pot before firing. 6. Figures blocked out then details painted on. 7. Pot fired some colour added after firing.

Making a pot  Pottery is made from clay - a sedimentary rock made up of very tiny particles of various minerals. The exact composition is dependent on which rocks were eroded to form the clay originally.  Attic clay is unique (but then so are all clays)- and uniquely suited to a particular method of potting which the Athenian potters miraculously discovered and exploited. Attic clay contains iron – hence the red colour when fired.

Making Athenian Red Figure vases  The first stage:  Dig the clay out of the ground  Grit or plant matter  Mix the clay with water (same as now)  As many times as necessary.  Clay left to dry out to the required consistency  Stored in humid room

Making Athenian Red Figure vases  To make a vase the potter kneaded a lump of clay of suitable size and placed it centrally on the flat surface of the wheel.

Making a pot  Potters' wheels were discs  Presumably made of wood, clay or stone,  About two feet in diameter,  Socketed bases  A boy, presumably an apprentice potter, to turn the wheel by hand.

 As the wheel revolved, the potter drew the clay up into the required shape with his hands.

Making a pot Particularly large vases were thrown in sections, and in the case of shapes such as cups, the foot would be thrown separately from the body. The handles of most shapes were hand-made. When all the components had been allowed to dry for about twelve hours, they were glued together with clay slip.

Decorating Athenian Red Figure vases So how do you get a picture? You make a pot the regular way, and let it dry a little ("leather-dry"). Then you mix a little of the wet clay with a lot of water, to make a kind of paint (called the slip), which you use to make the black part of the picture. (You can't see it now, because it is all the same colour). And you let the whole thing dry.

Decorating Athenian Red Figure vases  The rough outline was drawn on the clay with charcoal: this normally disappeared when the pot was fired, but if the clay was soft an impression was sometimes left.

Decorating Athenian Red Figure vases  After an initial drawing (probably with charcoal) the artist has painted in the complete figure using the refined clay slip as paint. When fired the details will turn black.

Decorating Athenian Red Figure vases  The second stage:  Painter to go round the outside of the figure with a thin brush (approximately 5mm wide) and paint a line to enclose the figure completely.  This line can very often still be detected on the finished pot. It will of course be BLACK after the pot is fired.

Decorating Athenian Red Figure vases Relief line  Next comes the detailed drawing within the figures. On the finished pot this line is remarkably consistent in width, and usually "sticks up" in relief.

 We don't know how it was done  Very fine brush or a syringe special tool?  Latest theory is that a series of tools with hairs attached could have been used - dipped in the clay paint and laid on to the pot to make curves, spirals or whatever. The relief line, drawn with "refined" clay will turn black after firing.

Decorating Athenian Red Figure vases  Now the background is filled in with black paint using a broad brush (the reason for the 5mm line now becomes clear). The "paint“/ slip is a refined version of the same clay from which the pot has been made, and so there is no great difference in colour until the pot is fired.

Firing a pot: Black and Red  Red figure is done all with one type of clay.  The clay found near Athens has a lot of iron in it, so it looks black when it is wet.iron  Fire it in an oven:  PLENTY OF AIR + IRON = RUSTING = RED POT  NO AIR + IRON = BLACK POT

Firing: STEP 1: OXIDISING  Plenty of air  The temperature was gradually made to rise to around 800º C.  The vase turns a bright orange-red, as the oxygen in the atmosphere combined with the iron in the clay to produce (red) ferric oxide.

Firing: STEP 2: REDUCING  When the potter judged that 800º C had been reached, he shut the air vents and introduced damp material in the form of green wood or even bowls of water. OR

 This produced a reducing (oxygen- poor) atmosphere in the kiln and the red ferric oxide was converted to (black) ferrous oxide, so that the entire pot turned black. Firing: STEP 2: REDUCING

 The temperature in the kiln continued to rise to around 945º C. The intense heat caused the fine particles of the clay of the coated areas of the pot to 'sinter', (to fuse together to form a hard, smooth, almost glassy surface). Firing: STEP 2: REDUCING

Firing: STEP 3 = OXIDISING  The temperature was allowed to drop  At about 900º C the ventilation holes were opened up, oxygen returned to the kiln, and the Black ferrous oxide of the unpainted areas converted back to Red ferric oxide  As the kiln cooled down these parts turned orange-red again.  The sealed surface of the sintered areas does not let oxygen back in and so remained black.

 The pot after firing: it will now be burnished (polished up) and is ready for sale or use.