3 Easy Ways to Make a Slab Vase

Summary

In this instructional pottery video from The Pottery Wheel, viewers learn how to create three distinct types of slab vases: a simple cylindrical vase, a textured cone-shaped vase, and an angular slab vase. The creator provides a step-by-step guide on how to form, join, and texture clay slabs, including tips on using beveling tools, applying clay slip, and attaching bases securely. The tutorial includes links to necessary templates and previous videos on rolling perfect slabs and creating conical shapes. Beginners will find this tutorial helpful as it covers essential techniques for pottery making.

Highlights

• Create a simple cylindrical vase to kickstart your pottery adventure. ✨
• Learn to add textures to your vase with helpful tips and tools. 🔨
• Explore the art of making angular slab vase for modern aesthetics. 📐
• Utilize downloadable templates to perfect your vase crafting. 📄
• Gain confidence with fundamental pottery techniques for secure joins and smooth finishes. 💪

Key Takeaways

• Unleash your creativity with three unique slab vase designs! 🎨
• Master the basics with a simple cylinder vase tutorial. 🏺
• Explore textures with the cone-shaped slab vase for added flair. 🌟
• Get angular with a trendy, geometric slab vase design. 🔺
• Enhance your clay skills with practical tips and tricks throughout! 💡
• Download templates to make your pottery journey smoother. 🔍

Overview

In this captivating tutorial, The Pottery Wheel creator takes us on a creative journey to make three different slab vase designs, ensuring there's something for every pottery enthusiast. Whether you’re new to pottery or looking to polish your skills, this guide has got your back. The creator starts us off with a simple cylindrical vase, perfect for beginners looking to understand the basics of slab building.

Next up is the visually intriguing textured vase. The creator demonstrates how to add texture and character to your pottery with a cone-shaped vase, offering downloadable template links for ease. With clear explanations and handy tips, viewers will learn to navigate more complex pottery forms, building confidence as they go.

Finally, the tutorial rounds off with an angular slab vase. Modern and unique, this vase is perfect for those wanting to experiment with geometric shapes in their pottery. The tutorial dives into assembling, joining, and finishing techniques, ensuring your creations not only look good but are also structurally sound. With engaging content and easy-to-follow instructions, anyone can start their pottery journey with a dash of fun and creativity.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 10:00: Introduction and Simple Cylinder Vase In this chapter, the author introduces the project of creating three slab vases. The chapter focuses on the creation of a simple cylinder vase, highlighting it as the easiest design to make. The author mentions that they will later cover the creation of a textured vase and an angular slab vase. Additionally, they provide information on where to find the downloadable template for making these vases, specifically on the author's website. The chapter provides a step-by-step approach to making a simple cylinder-shaped vase, starting with finding a piece of tubing of the same size.
• 10:00 - 20:00: Textured Vase This chapter explains how to create a textured vase using plastic or cardboard tubing covered in paper, which is eventually shaped with clay. The author starts by selecting the desired width for the vase and covers a tube with paper, securing it with tape. Additional paper is added to increase height. The process involves rolling out a slab of clay to cover the structure, which the author mentions has been demonstrated in an earlier video.
• 20:00 - 29:00: Angular Slab Vase The chapter titled 'Angular Slab Vase' begins with the narrator referring to another video, suggesting a link for viewers to follow. The focus then shifts to the process of creating an angular slab vase. The narrator uses wooden sticks as roller guides, which are 3 mm thick (about an eighth of an inch) to ensure the clay slab is rolled evenly. After rolling the slab, the narrator trims the ends to size it appropriately and then stresses the importance of compressing the clay with a pottery tool, using a platter tool in this instance.

3 Easy Ways to Make a Slab Vase Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 in this video I'm going to show you how I made these three slab vases I'll start off with this simple cylinder vase just cuz it's the easiest to make then I'll show you how I made this textured vase and lastly I'll show you how I made this angular slab vase you can download the template that I made to make the vases from my website and I will put a link in the description below so you know where to find them this is how I made this simple cylinder-shaped vase first of all I find a piece of tubing that's the same
• 00:30 - 01:00 width that I want the vase to be it can be plastic or cardboard and I found this tubing on Amazon I wrap some paper around the tube and stick it down with some tape I fold the paper around the base of the tube to make sure that the whole thing is covered and then I also add another sheet of paper because I know that I want the vase to be a little bit taller you need to roll out a slab of clay I have made a video earlier on on how to roll out an even slab of Cl clay
• 01:00 - 01:30 if you want to have a look at that I'll put a link in this video to that one right now the wooden sticks on either side of the slab are roller guides and they are to make sure that the slab is rolled out evenly and they are 3 mm thi which is about an eighth of an inch because the slab's quite large I cut the ends off there because I didn't need it to be quite as big as it was after you've rolled out the slab you need to compress the clay with a pottery tool I'm using a platter tool here but
• 01:30 - 02:00 you can use a rubber rib or even an old credit card the reason for doing this is just wait to take away the texture from the clay surface and also to compress and align the clay particles and make the slab a bit stronger I'm going to trim the slab down a bit now so I'm just putting the tube next to it so I've got a bit of a guide about how much clay to take off so I'm using my straight edge and I'm just going to trim off the edges of the slab to to make it into more of a
• 02:00 - 02:30 rectangle shape doesn't need to be too precise at the moment I'm just trying to tidy up the slab now once I've cut the slab to a rough rectangle shape then I mark on the slab the height that I want the vs to be with my ruler and then cut it to the right size I also cut the ends of the clay too so it's a square end and then I gently roll it around the tube at the moment the clay slab is too long to fit exactly around the tube so
• 02:30 - 03:00 what I'm going to do now is I'm going to make some marks on the end of the clay slab so that I know exactly where to cut it so that it's the exact length you can see from there what I'm doing there is I'm marking on the clay where I want to cut it to length and I'm just making a little diagonal mark because what I'm actually going to do is I'm going to Bevel the clay edges so that they fit together neatly so that it makes a nice flush join so so I just turn it around and I'm
• 03:00 - 03:30 going to do exactly the same thing on the other side I'm just marking on the clay where I need to cut it and then once you've made the marks you can just roll the slab back out onto your work surface just being careful not to stretch the slab so I'm turning the clay over here and the easiest way to turn a slab over is just to put a piece of fabric on top put your hand underneath and then flip it over turning the slab like that stops the clay from stretching so now I'm cutting the clay slab to
• 03:30 - 04:00 length so that I know that it fits exactly around the tube and then once it's cut I bevel the edges of the slab I'm using a clay beveling tool here and beveling just means cutting the clay at an angle this means that when you join the two edges of clay together they'll fit together perfectly and make a nice flush surface because I'm joining the two edges of clay together it's important that I score into the clay this is a serrated rib tool and I'm just using it it's got like a textured um Edge and I'm using it to scratch into
• 04:00 - 04:30 the clay and create a rough texture so that when I join the two pieces of clay together they bond together really well so again just flipping the slab over and I'm going to repeat the process on the other Edge that is beveling it and then scoring into it with the serrated rib tool and then once I've done that I just roll the clay around the tube very carefully and what I'm trying to do there is I'm trying to make sure that the edge of the slab is perfectly flush
• 04:30 - 05:00 with the bottom edge of the tube because at a later point I'm going to attach a base to the vase and I want to make sure that the the edge of the clay is in line with the base of the tube then you can flip your piece of fabric over and wrap the clay around the tube and then I'm just going to apply some slip which is is just clay mixed
• 05:00 - 05:30 with water it's a liquid clay put it on the scored edges and it acts as a glue when you place the edges together the slip the clay slip will glue the two edges of the clay together and then what you need to do is just press the two edges of the clay together gently take your time with this you just press them little by little so that you create a really nice nice firm
• 05:30 - 06:00 seam and what I'm doing here is I'm using a rubber rib and I'm just running it along the seam of the join to compress the clay together it does two things it will blend the clay in so it makes a nice flush surface but it also really bonds the clay together I'm going to make a base for the vase now this is just a little off cut of clay that I had from before so I'm just cutting it to roughly to the right size and then that a a banding wheel with a wooden bat on
• 06:00 - 06:30 top and then I just put a piece of paper on top just to stop the clay slab from sticking to the wooden bat it's just a bit easier to pick the pick the vase up afterwards if it's bit of paper underneath it so I'm just going to lower the vase onto the the base really carefully I'm not actually sticking it to the base at the moment what I'm going to do is I'm just going to use my clay knife to Mark around the base where I want the base to be out and I'm marking
• 06:30 - 07:00 about a millim wider than the base of the vase just so that I've got a little bit of extra clay to blend in and then now that I've removed the vase and I've got a bit more room and a bit more space to cut out the base accurately I'm just going around that marked line with my clay knife and cutting it out that's my little initial stamp which is going to go on the underside of the slab
• 07:00 - 07:30 and again because I'm joining the base onto the vase just scoring into the edge of the base and also the bottom edge of the vase and then applying some slip and then I lower the vase onto the base and I do it slowly so that I can align it properly and once it's actually on the on the the base you you've got a few seconds where you can just kind of wiggle it into position so just wiggling it into position and then once it's in position and I'm just pressing it firmly but
• 07:30 - 08:00 gently down onto the base and then using my finger just to blend the blend the clay in once I've blended it in with my finger what I do is I use a wooden tool to go around and just blend that excess millimeter of clay that I cut out I blend that onto the base of the vas and that just makes sure that I've got a really firm bond between the base of the vase and the vase itself now what I'm doing here is I'm
• 08:00 - 08:30 actually cutting around the top edge of the vase because at the moment the top Edge isn't entirely level so what you can do to level it out is just find a tool like a ruler or a long wooden tool to support your hand and then as you can see there I'm holding the ruler with my right hand and then I'm also holding my clay knife in the same hand and I'm using the ruler just to keep my hand steady so that as I draw the clay knife along
• 08:30 - 09:00 the top edge of the vase my hand isn't shifting in position and it just means that I can draw a line around the top of the rim of the vase that is going to be at a consistent height from the base once I've done that just peel away a little bit of paper so I can grab the tube and then pull the tube out and then you can pull the paper away now at this point the paper is a little bit bit soggy and damp so it is a little
• 09:00 - 09:30 bit fiddly to get out it might tear a little bit when you're trying to pull it out but it will come out fairly easily you just need to be a little bit patient with it now what I'm doing now is I'm smoothing out the top rim of the vase one of the easiest ways of doing this is just to get a small piece of cellophane or cling film fold the cellophane over the edge of the rim and then just gently rub the rim of the vase with the
• 09:30 - 10:00 cellophane folded over and it gives a nice smooth finish now what I'm going to do now is I'm just going to belly out the base of the vase a little bit the piece of fabric that you saw me putting inside the vase just there is a piece of damp shammy leather and it just it helps smooth the tips of your fingers as you run it over the inside surface of the vase and just really gently I'm pressing out the base of the vase I don't want to make it really curved but I just want to
• 10:00 - 10:30 belly it out just a little bit to soften off the shape of the vase you don't have to do this you can just have a straight cylinder but it's just nice to give it a bit of a curve on the base and then once I've done that I'm just gently curving out the lip of the vase too just to give it a bit more of a curve so it's not entirely straight up and down and there you have it there is the finished vase so this next Vas is a textured vase
• 10:30 - 11:00 that's made out of two cone-shaped templates these are the templates that I used you can download these from my website and I also made a video on how to make conical shaped templates too which I'll put a link in right now the two cones have got to fit together like that and what this means is that even though the templates are different sizes the widest curve which is the top edge of the curve has to be the same length on on both of the templates even though
• 11:00 - 11:30 they're different shapes so again just roll out a slab of clay and cut both of the templates Out and because the clay is quite fresh what I'm actually going to do is I'm going to set this aside so it firms up a little bit because it's a bit too soft to be handling at the moment so I'm just putting some paper on top of the slab then I put my plastic chopping board on top flip it over and then remove the canvas and set it to one side to firm up
• 11:30 - 12:00 for a little while I leave the slabs for a couple of hours to let them firm up and then I add a little bit of texture to both of them using one of my texture clay rollers if you're adding texture with a roller to a curved piece of clay you just do it slowly and gradually sort of twist the roller around as you're pushing it gently just so that it follows the curve of the slab and after using the roller I just
• 12:00 - 12:30 put the template back in place and trim the slab again because the pressure from the roller will squish a little bit of the clay out at the end there and as you can see I'm using the beveling tool again just to Bevel The Edge there because again I want the joint to be flush so bevel one Edge flip it over and then do the same with the other side and then I use my serrated rib to score on both edges I don't apply the slip at the moment because I'm going to be left up the slab right now and the uh
• 12:30 - 13:00 glaz liit makes it a bit sticky and awkward to handle so I curve the slab into position first and then once it's in position I add a little bit of slip to both of the edges you don't need to worry too much about it being a perfect shape at the moment I'll show you a trick in a minute um about how to make it perfectly round but just for now you need to get it into a rough cone shape and then apply some slip to the edges now because the top edge of the cone is
• 13:00 - 13:30 quite narrow I can't fit my hand all the way down there to support the inside so once it's roughly in position I find a wooden tool that is the length of the cone and I sort of put the wooden tool down inside the cone and support it whilst I am blending the blending the seam in and using a rubber rib just to smooth out that join you do lose a little little bit of the texture on the seam
• 13:30 - 14:00 but my feeling is that that just adds a bit to the character of the piece at this point the clay is firm enough so that you can lift the cone gently and move it around I use an old plastic drinking Beaker and I gently slide it into one end of the slab cone just to make sure that the narrower end of the clay cone is nice and circular and then I'm going to repeat the PO process with the other clay slab La this smaller Clay laab is the top
• 14:00 - 14:30 edge of the vse so it's exactly the same thing slip and score and then join the seam together and what you can see there is I've got a plastic cone in the narrower end of the slab and I've also put the wider end of the slab onto an old plastic Bowl as well just to make sure that both ends of the of the shape are
• 14:30 - 15:00 nice and round so I'm going to put a base onto the onto the vs now and I'm just repeating the process that I did before which is lifting it into position onto a an offcut of clay removing it and then just cutting around the area that I've marked and then scoring into the clay on both sides applying some slip
• 15:00 - 15:30 and then lowering it into position with this one I'm actually going to leave a bit of a rim along the base because I think it'll add a nice look to the profile so I'm not going to completely blend it in I'm not going to smooth it away that excess clay I'm not going to smooth that away with a wooden tool and what I'm doing there is I'm just blending the inside surface of the seam a little bit with my wooden tool now the two halves of the vases are ready to be join together I score both
• 15:30 - 16:00 edges of the two halves and apply some slip then I lower the top half of the vs onto the bottom half and whilst the slip is still fresh I just wiggle it into position so that the two halves line up with one another it's a little bit trickier this one because you can't get your hand right down inside to support the Inside Edge of the vase so you've just got to be gentle when you're blending the clay together together and I'm applying a bit of pressure on the
• 16:00 - 16:30 top of the vase not so much that it's going to crush it but just so that it holds it firm and then I'm just blending it in with my fingers and then once it's attached firmly I'm just putting a wooden tool inside the vase just to support it a little bit and then just applying a bit of pressure just to make sure that the seam is a really good seal I didn't mention earlier on actually but when you're joining the two halves together it's a good idea to make sure that the seams line up with one another so the
• 16:30 - 17:00 seam is just one straight line down the back of the vase and again regardless of how careful you are when you're making your slabs the top edge of the vs at this point is not going to be completely level so you can level it off using the the uh trick that I showed you earlier on and then again I'm just using a piece of cellophane there folded around the the top of the the rim and then just
• 17:00 - 17:30 gently compressing the clay to create a nice smooth finish and then when I remove the cling film I just use the tip of my finger just to add any finishing touches to the top edge of the vase and here is the finished piece and the last vas I'm going to make is this angular shaped slab vas to make this vas I use this four piece template which you can download from my website using the link in the description because the vase is a square shape each
• 17:30 - 18:00 of those four pieces of the template need to be cut out four times apart from the base of course because there's only one base to the vase so I roll out a slab of clay and this slab is also going to be 3 mm thick so I'm using my 3 mm roller guides just to cut out some slabs that I know are going to be the right size to cut out my template unlike the other two vases this particular vas needs to be made out of slabs that have been allowed to firm up and become leather hard so I cut out the
• 18:00 - 18:30 slabs and then I put them to one side to let them firm up the way that I do this is that I transfer the slabs onto a piece of paper on a wooden drying board the paper is just to stop the slabs from sticking to the board it makes the easier to maneuver around I won't show you me cutting out each section of the template four times because that would be really boring to watch but once I've cut out each piece and transferred it onto the drying board it should look a little bit like this I cover each of
• 18:30 - 19:00 these slabs up with a sheet of paper just to help it with the drying process then I put another wooden board on top to make sure that when the slabs are drying out they stay flat the slabs do firm up pretty quickly and if you find that they've dried and gone a little bit too hard what you can do is you can put them on a damp towel like this and then cover them up with some plastic and it will rehydrate them and just make them a bit more flexible again it can be tricky to catch slabs at exactly the right point but you want them to be a little bit like this so firm but a bit
• 19:00 - 19:30 bendy so I beveled the edges of each of the slabs that I'm going to join together and now I want to join these slabs together like that at a bit of an angle sort of angling in so what I'm going to do is I'm going to just score down each of the edges like I did before with the other vases slipping both of the edges and then you can just sort of position them together lean them in towards one another line them up and then just gently pinch the two edges
• 19:30 - 20:00 together and then when you've pinched the clay together you can blend the seam in with your finger just to tidy it up and also just to make the joint as as strong as you can at the moment because at the moment the the structure is pretty precarious and for that reason it's a good idea to add your third slab as quickly as you can just to give the structure a bit more strength so I bevel the edges score them apply some slips and then put the third slab into
• 20:00 - 20:30 position and again just repeating that process of pinching the joints together and then blending them in with your finger and then here I'm adding the last slab to the base once the fourth slab has been added to the base of the vas it does make the whole thing a lot more sturdy I add a thin coil of clay to the inside of each of the joins there's a bit of a knack to Rolling clay coils and I've made a video on this so I'll link to that video right now for you the coil
• 20:30 - 21:00 is thin so I'm just going to wrap it in plastic whilst I'm not using it so it doesn't dry out and then I'm going to score into the Inside Edge of the vase using my needle tool once I've got scored into the surface I just apply some slip and in fact what can help to blend the coil in is um just to run a little bit of water over the coil with your finger just to moisten it up so put the coil into position and then I'm just pressing it into place with my wooden tool there and then just blending it in with the wooden tool it's a bit
• 21:00 - 21:30 difficult to see from the camera angle but I'm just blending in with the wooden tool and then you can use this is called a stylus tool you can run it over the Blended seam and it just Smooths out the surface of the join it's a good idea for the joints to be smooth because it stops them from cracking as they dry but also when you glaze your pot it creates a smooth surface for the glaze to cover and which makes the fars a bit more watertight and then High smooth over the join with a piece of damp shammy leather
• 21:30 - 22:00 and then that process gets repeated for all four corners then turn the vase the other way up and check and see what the other Corners look like now I can see here that one of those Corners has opened up a little bit when I was pressing the coil into it so it's really important to fix that before you go any further because the drier it gets the more likely it is that crack is going to open up when the vase is drying so I just just go in there with my needle tool and rough up the surface a little
• 22:00 - 22:30 bit and then apply a good amount of slip just to moisten the clay off again and then put a little coil of clay into that Gap so what I do is I just go around the base and just check that the seams are all Blended in and also that the coils on the Inside Edge are also nice and smooth and Blended because any cracks at this point will open up when when the when the pot's drying this is the base of the vs which
• 22:30 - 23:00 I know is the right size because I use the template to cut it out I'm just going around the edge with the serrated rib and then also scoring along the bottom edge of the V to adding some slip and then I'm just lowering the vase onto the base and lining it up so that it's in the correct position now you can see that the base is just a little bit wider then the vase and I've done that
• 23:00 - 23:30 deliberately just so that I can trim some off make sure that it's a little bit of excess so that you can blend it in and trim it off now I'm going to add a clay coil to the inside base of the vase 2 this vase is wide enough along the top Rim so that I can get my hand in there quite easily so as I can do it I'm going to and then I'm using the stylist tool just to smooth the coil in to create a nice neat smooth surface now what I'm going to do is I'm
• 23:30 - 24:00 going to assemble the next section of the vase which is the shoulder of the vase it's four smaller slabs of clay and each Edge on these slabs of clay needs to be beveled and I'll show you why in a moment the first thing that I do is I bevel both short ends of each of the four slabs of clay because these are going to join together to form the shoulder of the vase so this is how the pieces need to fit together but before I actually assemble the shoulder I'm going
• 24:00 - 24:30 to Bevel the bottom edge of each piece and I'm also going to Bevel the top edge of each piece and that's because when the bits that make up the shoulder are sitting at an angle like that the top and the bottom edges need to be flat then I score both edges apply some slip and then join them together [Music]
• 24:30 - 25:00 [Applause]
• 25:00 - 25:30 when I've Blended each of the four corners the shoulder of the vase is then ready to attach to the bottom half of the vase I do that by scoring each side adding some slip and then lowering the shoulder onto the base of the vase again it's a good idea just to put
• 25:30 - 26:00 it in position very lightly and then just wiggle it around until it's lined up correctly and then once it's in the right position you can just pinch the seams together [Music] gently [Music]
• 26:00 - 26:30 now this is the neck of the vase it's the four last pieces of the vase so I'm just going to join those together into a square [Music] tube [Music]
• 26:30 - 27:00 and then I'm just scoring into the top edge of the vase and the bottom edge of the neck you know the trail now put a bit of slip on and then put the neck in position making sure it's aligned correctly before you start really trying
• 27:00 - 27:30 to blend it on once it's in position the first thing that I try and do is put my hand into the neck and then on the inside of the vase just try and blend the inside seam in as best as I can with my fingertips so I'm just pressing the neck down gently with my right hand and then with my left hand just blending in the inside seam and then you can use a a wooden tool like that just to go over the inside seam and blend it as much as
• 27:30 - 28:00 you can and then supporting the inside of the vase with your hand with your free hand just score into the outside edge with a needle tool and then just add a very thin clay coil to the outside join to it's a good idea to make the clay coil really thin because you don't want to add loads of extra bulk to the neck of the vase now blend it in with a fine wooden tool and smooth it off and then you just repeat that process for each side of where the shoulder
• 28:00 - 28:30 joins with the neck and the last thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to paint some wax resist onto the top edge of the rim the reason I'm doing that is because the top Edge dries out quicker than the rest of the vs because there's more air flow around it if you paint some wax resist onto it it just slows that drying process down and gives the CH gives the rim a chance to dry out at the same rate and it means that it's less prone to CR cracking as as it dries so just painting it on there and then
• 28:30 - 29:00 once it's dried once that wax resistor is dried I just cover the rest of the vase with some cellophane and let it dry out slowly to reduce the chance of it cracking when it dries because it's thin the the slabs are thin and there's lots of angles that can crack when they dry and here is the finished vas if you enjoyed this video why not click on the link that's coming up any second now on how I make slab mugs thanks for watching bye