Coil Pot

This week in art class we learned how to make a coil pot. We first started out with a lump of clay and we had to knead it so all of the air bubbles would come out. After a few minutes of kneading the clay we took our clay to the teacher and they used a wire cutter to check and see if all the air bubbles were gone. After that we would tear off a piece of clay a little bit bigger than our thumbs. This was used as the bottom of the pot. We flattened it into a circular shape. Then we learned how to make a coil. We started out with a ball of clay and applied even pressure with our fingers while rolling back and forth to create a snake like object that was a little thicker than a pencil. Once this was done we combined the two pieces together. We then scored each piece. This includes making smalls lines to help the clay stick to the other piece of clay. We then began stacking the coil on top of each other until it was a desired height. We used water, clay tools, and our hands to smooth the inside of the pot. We then had to let the pots sit over night so they could dry before we painted them.

After the pots were dry we could paint them. We had to include one primary color and one secondary color. I chose to use yellow and purple and then I also used white. Another requirement was including some kind of symbol that was important to us. I painted a yellow heart on my pot. The heart represents my family and how important they are to me.

An extension activity would be researching different kinds of pottery. Students would be given a country and they would have to find out what kind of pottery is popular and create an example of it.