A slip is a clay slurry used to produce

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other raw materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. The place where such wares are made by a ''potter'' is al ...

and other

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

wares. Liquified clay, in which there is no fixed ratio of water and clay, is called slip or clay slurry which is used either for joining leather-hard (semi-hardened) clay body (pieces of pottery) together by slipcasting with mould, glazing or decorating the pottery by painting or dipping the pottery with slip.What is slip in pottery
thepotterywheel.com, accessed 10 July 2021. Pottery on which slip has been applied either for glazing or decoration is called slipware. Engobe, from the French word for slip, is a related term for a liquid suspension of clays and flux, in addition to fillers and other materials. This is in contrast to slips, which are historically considered to be a liquid suspension of only clay or clays in water. Engobes are commonly used in the ceramic industry, typically to mask the appearance of the underlying clay body. They can be sprayed onto pieces in a similar method to glaze and through the addition of coloring oxides they can achieve a wide variety of colors, though not with the same vibrancy as glazes. Among artists engobes are often confused with slip, and the term is sometimes used interchangeably.

Usage

Joining and molding

An additive with deflocculant properties, such as sodium silicate, can be added to disperse the raw material particles. This allows a higher solids content to be used, or allows a fluid to be produced with a minimal amount of water so that drying shrinkage is minimised, which is important during slipcasting. Usually the mixing of slip is undertaken in a blunger although it can be done using other types of mixers or even by hand. * To join sections of unfired ware or greenware, such as handles and spouts. * To fix into place pieces of

relief Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...

decoration produced separately, for example by moulding. This technique is known as '' sprigging''; an example is Jasperware. * When slip is used to join two pieces of greenware together, it is generally used with a technique known as scratch and slip, whereby the contact points on both pieces are scored with multiple criss-crossing lines and slip painted on one piece over the scores.

Decoration and protection

Charger of Charles II in the Boscobel Oak LACMA M

Slipware is pottery decorated by slip placed onto a wet or leather-hard clay body surface by dipping, painting or splashing. Some slips will also give decreased permeability, though not as much as a ceramic glaze would give. Often only pottery where the slip creates patterns or images will be described as slipware, as opposed to the many types where a plain slip is applied to the whole body, for example most fine wares in Ancient Roman pottery, such as African red slip ware (note: "slip ware" not "slipware"). Decorative slips may be a different colour than the underlying clay body or offer other decorative qualities such as a shiny surface. Selectively applying layers of colored slips can create the effect of a painted ceramic, such as in the black-figure or red-figure pottery styles of Ancient Greek pottery. Slip decoration is an ancient technique in Chinese pottery also, used to cover whole vessels over 4,000 years ago. Principal techniques include slip-painting, where the slip is treated like paint and used to create a design with brushes or other implements, and slip-trailing, where the slip, usually rather thick, is dripped onto the body. Slip-trailed wares, especially if Early Modern English, are called slipware. Chinese pottery also used techniques where patterns, images or calligraphy were created as part-dried slip was cut away to reveal a lower layer of slip or the main clay body in a contrasting colour. The latter of these is called the "cut-glaze" technique.Vainker, 116-117 Slipware may be carved or burnished to change the surface appearance of the ware. Specialized slip recipes may be applied to biscuit ware and then refired. Barbotine (another French word for slip) covers different techniques in English, but in the sense used of late 19th-century art pottery is a technique for painting wares in polychrome slips to make painting-like images on pottery.

Other uses in pottery

A slip may be made for various other purposes in the production and decoration of ceramics, such as slip can be used to mix the constituents of a clay body.

Gallery

File:MET DP274692.jpg, Chinese Cizhou ware vase with cut-glaze decoration File:Phenician plate with red slip 7th century BCE excavated in Mogador island.jpg,

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n plate with red slip, now wearing away, 7th century BC, excavated at Mogador Island near

Essaouira Essaouira ( ; ), known until the 1960s as Mogador (, or ), is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marrakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast. It has 77,966 inhabitants as of 2014. The foundation of the city of Essaouira was the work of t ...

File:Miletus ware showig red clay base.jpg, Miletus ware showing a red body covered by white slip, then painted in blue, c. 1400,

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

References