Square Pottery Candy Dish

I just love how this dish turned out. I had all these ideas swirling around in my head that I wanted to try and I tried several of them out on this dish that I hand built.

First off, I slab rolled out my clay. Then I used a ruler to make a square template on newspaper and then cut that out of the slabbed clay. I did not use a mold with this one. I used slip and scoured my corners to join them and then made a small coil that I put inside each edge that I smoothed in to place.

After I finished making the body of the dish, I used the tip of a fettling knife to create the detail inside. Once that was finished, I made the feet, which I did my rolling balls and flattening them on both sides, then using a sculpting too I carved out the details that make it look like bottle caps. I put those in place by souring and using slip between the feet and the dish, the smoothed edges together.

Next was the detail on the outside with the coils. I made those to help fill in and strengthen the joined edges of the dishes.

Finally, the glaze. I really wanted to see the knife detailing I did inside so there is only a clear glaze on the inside sides. On the bottom I used a sandstone glaze with clear glaze over top and on the outside I did a dark blue glaze. This piece for me was more about the details I put in the clay rather than the design of the glaze.