Making bigger pieces by hand is made easier by the use of slabs (made with the slab roller) or building with coils.
Vase #1 is made from one large slab wrapped around a cylindrical form. I plucked some interesting leaves from a tree in the courtyard just outside the Studio, and pressed them into the damp clay, and coated the outside with black slip. The video clip below was made after bisque firing at Cone 08.
Vase #2 is made from fat (3/4″) extruded coils made with an extruder which I flattened slightly with a roller, making “slab coils.” Using slab coils sped up the process of building the sides of the forms, and also resulted in thinner (less clunky) walls of the vase. I built two 7″ diameter bowl-like shapes and pressed them together to make a round shape, and added a neck and base using more slab coils. I painted 3 coats of black underglaze around the belly of the vase, and let it dry to leather hard. Then, I used the sgraffito technique to decorate the vase, scratching off the underglaze with a linoleum cutter, creating a contrasting pattern and texture, revealing the clay underneath. The video clip below was made at the greenware stage.