A crafts that has been passed down for generations, ceramics is used throughout pottery design,
furniture, accessories and architecture.
Let us guide you through the wide variety of techniques used by our
skilled ceramicists in Italy to bring you closer to the hands that create the magic in ceramic design and
manufacturing.
Handbuilding is one of the oldest pottery technique. It involves creating shapes by using hands, fingers, and basic tools. Pinching the clay, coil building, and slab building are the most common ways to create volumes. Traditionally the shaped object is then enriched with engraved decoration created by hand or with tolls on the raw clay. Hand techniques allow mixing ceramics with other materials as well such as paper pulp, which offers extra stability.
Throwing pottery is a very common way to shape clay into round ceramic ware. While the art piece spins on its axis the craftsman shape it with his hands and simple tools. The wheel may also be used for applying incised decoration on the final piece.
Casting and slip casting are techniques generally used to form complex shapes and involve the use of a mould. In Slip casting, a liquid clay body is poured into openable plaster moulds. A layer of clay forms on the inside walls of the mould while drying. In order to create a hollow cast, once the plaster has absorbed most of the liquid on the outer layer, the remaining liquid is poured off. After most water has been absorbed, the cast piece is removed from the mould and allowed to dry out for several more hours.
Plaster or metal press moulds are used when planning to produce multiples of a ceramic form or when making raised decorations on a ceramic piece. This technique involves pushing clay into a mould by hand or by a mechanical/hydraulic press. RAM presses are used to press clay to create plates, bowls and 3d tiles. The clay body dried or wet is placed in between two porous moulds, and vertical movement of the moulds presses the body into the required shape.
Palazzo Montedoria, designed by Giò Ponti in 1971, is covered with green ceramic tiles which are characterized by a smooth diamond-cut surface.
When the external façade needed renovation, our ceramic partner provided the reproduction of the porcelain stoneware tiles: four different types of ceramic tiles, sized cm 6×19, relief, low-relief, high low-relief and flat.
The special glazes used in this renovation were specifically chosen to recreate the erosion caused by the weather. In addition, these tiles were produced in accordance with a hand-crafted technique which makes the material heterogeneous, both in the effects on the surface and in the dimension of the pieces.
Extrusion is a process widely used to produce ceramic components with a uniform cross-section and a large length-to-diameter ratio. The clay compound is forced through a die of the desired cross-section. The technique can be performed with simple hand-powered tools or with automatic machines.
Glazing is pulverised glass and appropriate solvents which are mixed with transition-metal or earth elements to create different colours. The ceramic biscuits can be glazed with different techniques. The ceramic can be dipped in a glazing bath, the glazing can be airbrushed on it or can be hand-painted. The decorated piece is then fired again to vitrify the coating. The same glazing applied with different methods can generate very different aesthetics results.
Crackle’, Flamed, Iridescent, pearlescent, metalized, Salt and pepper are all effects achieved by the balance between chemical reaction happening in the glazing, cycles of different temperature within the firing and multiples firing sessions. Glazing adds infinite possibilities to ceramic aesthetics. Crackle glazes for examples have a crack pattern that is a product of thermal expansion mismatch between body and glaze. After the glaze solidifies it shrinks more than the body and to relieve the tension of being stretched, it cracks. Crackle glazes are typically created at low temperatures.
There are many different techniques for transferring images onto clay. To print with a screen is to transfer a color through a stretched material on a frame. Screen printing is mostly done onto flat surfaces. The colours pass through the screen by dragging them with a squeegee across what is being decorated, leaving a flat printed pattern. To screen print with the Majolica method, only the outlines should be printed. The colors are painted by hand, which is very important for the end result. Digital print is also possible on ceramics.
Encaustic tiles were originally popularised by the Victorians, who valued their durability and vibrance, using them to pave the floors of many of that era’s grandest buildings.
Granby Workshop were interested in rethinking this type of tile by applying their unique, experimental manufacturing ethos to this historic process, thus creating reinvented colourful, vitrified tiles for floors and walls
Blocks of clay are marbled together by hand, sliced and flattened in a 60 tonne hydraulic press, meaning every tile is different. They are suitable for interior and exterior use on floors and walls.
