Tar paper in the workshop

Thin tar paper is a great helper in the pottery workshop. Why? Because it's not afraid of water.

Three tips for using tar paper in a pottery workshop:

1. You can cut it into throwing bats. Cut circles as accurately as possible, I recommend that you use the grooves in the pottery wheel when cutting sizes. This way you can center the paper well on the pottery wheel. Soak the tar paper bats first, soak them in a shallow dish for a while, for example. Clean the wheel head carefully, there should be no clay or chamotte left! Drain as much water as possible from the paper, place it in the middle of the wheel and squeeze the excess water out from under the paper with a sponge, starting from the middle, while the wheel is on. The water will squeeze away and the tar paper bats will be glued to the wheel head.

You can make plates and other shallow shapes this way. If you try to make something with high edges you will find that the bats don't work. This is because the clay starts to pull the paper up, the paper moves and your work is no longer centered.

You can easily remove your work by lifting the paper from the edge and pulling it onto a wooden work board with your  work. You can also try a metal wall scraper if your work is small enough.

Be advised - surprisingly the tar will not burn off in the kiln. When trimming, collect and throw away any tar residue left from the tar paper.

2. You can make patterns from tar paper and use them when making with slab technique. The best pen for black-brown paper is a light blue or white colored pencil. You can draw organic shapes, for example, and cut them out with scissors. When you wet the paper a little, it will stick to the clay slab and you can easily mark and cut out the shape you want. There is no need to remove the paper when you assemble your object, on the contrary, the paper helps the slabs to stay upright. Also, because the paper does not mind this kind of playing with water, you can use the same pattern as many times as you want.

3. From thicker tar paper you can cut stamps to decorate ceramics. Thicker tar paper has a fun striped texture, when you cut shapes from it and roll over them with a rolling pin you create fun surfaces that when glazed look really nice.

 Do you have any more tar paper tips? Send us a message and we'll share them with others.