Coil Building Basics with 15 Decorative Coil Techniques! An Easy Beginner's Tutorial in Clay!

This video covers the foundational basics of building pottery by using coils as well as using 15 different decorative coil techniques which my Ceramics I students use in making a coil skillbuilder, and will use many of these techniques on our sculptural shoe project. I have a FOLLOW-UP video on how to clean the carving for greater precision, which can be found here:    • Cleaning Leatherhard Decorative Coil Forms  

As promised, here is the pdf I made of the poster of techniques and step by step assembly: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ya7R...
If I can find the original document with the photos of coil techniques, I will share that as well.

Coil rolling is a skill to develop and here are some of my tips I show and explain:
1 squish clay into a sausage shape
2 twist ends in opposite directions
3 roll using your whole palm
4 pull hands apart to thin
5 push hands together to thicken
6 moisten coil occasionally
7 score and slip and blend first coil
8 fresh clay to fresh clay can just be moistened and blended

At the 14:20 mark, I have a screen to pause the video if you want to pause to practice the basics of coil rolling and making the bases and first coils.

At 14:20, then I begin showing 15 different coil techniques I show my kids while building. Don’t be limited by these, be adventurous and try to develop some more! The techniques I show are:
Straight coil
Rope
Snail Coils
Opposite End Snail Coils
Foldy-fence
Rainbow
Balls
Panels made from straight coils- can use a pattern to cut out
Thicker coil slightly flattened and stamped (could be carved leatherhard
Loopy String (like shoestrings)
Ribbon Wedge
Slab (can be textured and shaped-domed) Can use a pattern to cut out
Moving the edge inward or outward by placing the new coils slightly to the interior or exterior of the previous coil
Sculptural elements


I would clean further once the form is leatherhard with sculpting and cleaning any defects on the surface of the coils- sculpting it to look as natural as the intended coils as possible.

For the great tools I used in the video (including the mudtools shedders, ribs, and kemper mini ribbon tools) check out this link to a live Googledoc I continually update with lots of my favorite tools on Amazon using my associate links! (also some non-amazon suggestions on here!)
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X...

I am a public high school ceramics teacher at William Mason High School in Mason, Ohio. (Mason is currently the largest high school in Ohio!) As a potter, I have been working in clay for over 30 years, and I have been teaching for over 28 years, the past 20 have been specifically teaching high school ceramics. I love what I do! I have my own studio in my home basement, where I work on my personal pottery for my Etsy site; https://www.etsy.com/shop/KaransPotsA...

I started my Youtube channel a few years ago, to make videos to help my students if they are absent and miss a demo, or if they would like to explore more advanced techniques independently. I have been amazed to reach such a wider audience than my own students!

Please subscribe to my channel if you would like to receive channel updates, or would like to learn more about clay and studio processes!