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Marble Technique Aka Agateware


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I do all of my pottery by slab building. I don't own a wheel. Normally I use b-mix, but recently added brown clay to try the "agateware" technique. Is there any other way to get the true marbled look without having a wheel to trim? I found mine looked rather blurry. I've attached a photo, but the vases are leather hard. I've since then fired to bisque and they still look fuzzy, not the true defined marble technique.

I'm a self taught potter, so any help here is great!

Thanks,

Sarah

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First, you are doing great. Being a self-taught potter is remarkable; don't think otherwise.

 

You can trim on a banding wheel. You can also use a hand wood plane to hand trim your forms - more of a facet look but the facets could be softened/rounded with a rib. You could try removing/scraping the top layer with your flexible metal ribbon of death (aka, metal rib) while still a slab and then build your form (try a soft leatherhard, then drop the slab/wareboard on the floor to awaken the clay to make it more flexible for manipulation.

 

Make your slab twice the thickness it needs to be, then use wood slats as guides and your cut-off wire to slice the slab in half; the inside slabs should be nice and clear.

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they are beautiful!  whatever you are doing, keep it up.  that is a wonderful job of mixing the colors to appear natural.  many times they just look like 2 colors smeared next to each other.  you have great definition already.  scraping with the metal rib as bruce suggests should make you very happy next time.

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