First Coil Construction

I began my coil construction by throwing in a slanting way some clay (but guiding the clay while throwing on the table) to use as my base. I used a round object, a masking tape, to cut a round shape. I decided to go with the traditional way of making coils using just your hand, rolling the clay to make coils (above right photo) because I want to be able to control the thickness of the coils, and I was thinking of making different sizes and shapes for my piece.

To get the coils to stick to the base and to each other, it is important to score the clay and use slip. I decided to make my coil piece shaped like a drinking cup with a snake. My piece
reminded me of the movie “Indiana Jones” where he had to choose the cup that Jesus used,
the “carpenter’s cup”. I remember lots of snakes in the movie, so I decided to incorporate it as decoration.