You can tell from the name: this technique involves building a piece of pottery by rolling and then assembling coils of clay. It’s a very old technique, used by our predecessors to make simple, functional pots. But you can also use it to create complex artistic pieces, once you have mastered the technique. Let’s start at the beginning: how do you make a simple pot with coils?
Step 1: Make your coils
Take a hunk of clay and roll it in the palm of your hand to create a smooth ball. Pinch it until it’s shaped like a small sausage. Put the sausage on your work surface and roll it back and forth with your fingers or palms, making it longer and longer.
Keep moving your hands from the outer ends of the coil towards the middle and make sure to spend enough time on the ends themselves. Ideally, your coil should be about as thick as your finger. Smooth out any cracks in the coil as much as possible.
Do you want to create a stack of coils before you start assembling them? Then make sure you cover the coils that are done in plastic. That way they can’t dry out. Or you can also make your coils as you need them during the building process.
Step 2: Make the bottom
For a simple pot, you not only need coils, but also a clay slab that can serve as the bottom. Roll out your clay with a roller. To make sure the slab has an even thickness, you can use rolling guides or roll out your clay between two wooden slats of the same size.
Does your clab slab have the right thickness? Then it’s time to cut out a circle (or other shape). You can use a glass, a bowl, or some other object as a template. Smooth out any cracks in the edges of the shape you cut out, and make the surface of the bottom as even as possible.
Step 3: Add the first coil to the bottom
Take your first coil and drape it gently along the edge of your circle. Make sure the edges of the coil overlap, and then cut off the excess clay. The cut should be diagonal, because that way the two ends of the coil will stick together better.
Now that the coil is in the right position, it’s time to attach it to the bottom. You can do this in two ways. The first way is to create scratches in both the coil and the bottom, in the areas where the two will touch. Then add some slip to the scratched areas and bring the two pieces together. Another way is to smooth out the clay at the bottom of your coil onto the bottom, with your thumb or with a wooden tool.
Step 4: Keep building by adding more coils
Repeat the last step with more coils until you’ve reached the height you want. Make sure to properly attach each new coil to the previous one, either with the slip and score method or by smoothing out the clay. Make sure the walls of your pot are nice and smooth and no cracks are visible.
Step 5: Let the pot dry and finish it
When making a coil pot, you often end up with a lot of variation in the thickness of the walls. If you want to reduce the risk of cracking, it’s better to make sure that the clay dries very slowly. To slow down the drying process, cover your pot loosely in plastic. Then open the plastic a little at a time to let in more air.
Once your pot is completely dry, you can finish and fire it to your liking. And then start thinking about what your next project will be. This is how you get the ball (of clay) rolling …
Ready to learn more? There are many more hand building techniques you can try out. For example, we’ve talked about slab building and pinch building. Why not try it out?
