Layering

“ Thus thin layers are spread over it, a layer for a year, and it steadily gains in thickness with the passing of the years. The deeper levels are buried and pressed down, slowly growing firm and rigid, but still keeping the marks of the layers that make them up. ”

“ A small mass of moistened clay, mixed with sifted ashes of halfeh-grass and kneaded like bread, is placed upon a round plate of wood which whirls by a treadle. As it revolves the workman with his hands fashions the clay into vessels of all shapes, graceful and delicate, with a sleight of hand that is wonderful. ”

“ This mode of operation—essentially that of the engraver—is of special advantage in putting in a sky or a background behind complicated foliage. You can draw and bite your sky or your background all by itself (see Pl. IV. Fig. 5) , and then, having revarnished your plate, you can execute your trees on the background. As the trees are bitten by themselves, it is evident that we have avoided a difficulty which is almost insurmountable,—that, [Pg 47] namely, of stopping out with the brush the lines of the sky between intricate masses of foliage. But we can also proceed differently. ”

“ There is, at present, no definition of 'marl' which is quite satisfactory; a maker of London stock bricks understanding by this term a clay containing at least 10 per cent. of chalk; a maker of white Suffolk bricks a material containing at least twice this amount; an agriculturalist any soil, not obviously sandy, which will make his clay land less sticky; and many geologists any friable argillaceous earths. ”

“ The slightest touch tells on the clay when it is soft and moist, and can produce just the effect which is desired; but when the clay is too dry it will not yield, and often it breaks and crumbles beneath the unskilful hand. How perfect the analogy between these two results, and the two atmospheres which one often sees in the space of one half-hour in the management of the same child! ”

“ About half an inch seems a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful workmen, when they build mud walls (informed at first perhaps by these little birds) , raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist, lest the work should become top-heavy, and ruined by its own weight. ”

“ Moss, twigs, grass, stones, toy animals—all help to make the scene more lifelike. By sprinkling the sand with lime water it hardens so as to keep its shape for a long time.
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Clay Modeling. Although clay does not respond so quickly to the touch as sand, it preserves its shape more easily. The more skill that the teacher has in clay modeling the more freedom she will feel in the work, but she should not hesitate to make use of this mode of expression even though she has to learn with the child. ”

“ In many parts if you could dig straight downwards through the earth for thousands of feet, you would come to layer after layer of these stratified rocks, one kind below another, some layers thick, some layers thin, here a stratum of gravel, there a stratum of sandstone, here a stratum of coal, there a stratum of clay. ”

“ The ground looms a little ahead. And as it rises, the dead grass ceases underneath my feet. My feet tread sterile clay: they strike on it hard as if the clay were frozen, and yet the air of the field is wet and sultry.... My feet stop.
I am at the top of the little loom of the ground. ”

“ Where porous layers of rock are found resting on a layer which is impervious to water and covered by another layer also impervious, the water in the middle layer is held imprisoned. Where these three layers run i across a valley and up a hill on each side, they will be exposed to the air at the top. The falling rain is carried down the middle layer, and gathers at the bottom of the valley, and in time the whole porous layer becomes water logged, and the water at the center is under strong pressure. ”

“ Make a wooden mould, and put the clay on it: then the inside will be smooth, and just the shape of the mould, and you can make the outside just as you like; and when you put it in the fire the wood will burn out. Or you can do as the Indians do,—make a basket, and put the clay on the inside of the basket; and the basket will burn off. ”

“ All that can be affirmed in the present state of the science is the composition and nature of the clay, gravel, and bowlders—the course of the currents concerned in their deposition—the fact of the land having a configuration of hill and valley, not differing much from what now exists—and the peculiar scantiness, if not total absence, of organic remains. ”

“ HINTS ON MODELLING IN CLAY.
By FRED MILLER.
odelling in clay is a very agreeable change in one's artistic occupation, for it is quite unlike other branches of art, and calls into play a different set of faculties for its performance. It needs a greater amount of "hand cunning" than does painting, and is in that sense akin to wood carving, to which delightful craft it is, indeed, almost indispensable, and, I might add, part of the necessary training one has to undergo to become a carver in wood. ”

“ How can the clay be handled so that the drying sun and wind will not crack the walls? What is the test for telling whether the clay is sticky enough to hold together? How much of the nest must be stuck to the cliff so that the weight of it will not make it fall? ”

“ As a forest becomes denser, its layers disappear from the upper downward, the ground layer always being the last to disappear because of its ability to grow in very diffuse light. A vertically zoned formation shows a complex series of reactions. The primary layer determines the amount of heat, light, water, wind, etc., for the subordinate layers in general. Each of these layers then further determines the amount for those below it, the ground layer being subject in some degree to the control of every layer above it. ”

“ After SKY-ROCKETS and WATER-ROCKETS are charged, a piece of clay is driven in, through which a hole is pierced, and the ‘head’ or ‘garniture’ filled with stars, and a little corn-powder is then applied. ”

“ If the transmission of water through a porous medium be so rapid, we cannot be surprised that springs should be thrown out on the side of a hill, where the upper set of strata consist of chalk, sand, or other permeable substances, while the subjacent are composed of clay or other retentive soils. ”

“ When a body of clay is encountered and there is reason to suspect that a body of water is being approached, a long drill is used with which to feel the way in advance of the drift, and let the water out, if any there be, in a controllable stream. ”

“ Or I might have wiped the plate energetically with soft muslin, and then might have brought up again certain passages with a soft and somewhat cleaner rag.
This method of wiping, which leaves on the surface of the plate a tint of more or less depth, must not be confounded with retroussage. Here is a proof of one of the plates of which I spoke to you: it is well sustained at all points; the lines are full and nourished; the general aspect is harmonious and energetic; the lights are softened; the strongly marked passages are enveloped in a warm tint. ”

“ To obtain a general idea of the nature and method of our science before beginning its study in detail, we may visit some valley, such as that illustrated in the frontispiece, on whose sides are rocky ledges. Here the rocks lie in horizontal layers. Although only their edges are exposed, we may infer that these layers run into the upland on either side and underlie the entire district; they are part of the foundation of solid rock which everywhere is found beneath the loose materials of the surface. ”

“ The inclination near the surface is so small that a falling of the water of one foot would double the extent of that part of the surface which, by its smoothness and softness, is adapted to engraving. ”

“ This was such that almost every natural convulsion would be sure to split the soil into perpendicular layers or ridges running parallel with one another, and a very moderate exertion of art would be sufficient for effecting the same purpose. ”

“ SHALE has alls the property, like clay, of becoming plastic in water: it is a more solid form of clay, or argillaceous matter, condensed by pressure. It always divides into laminae more or less regular. ”

“ While there are only two distinct classes of shape—the ‘Standard’ and the ‘Legged’ ones—so much variety is introduced into these that many appear to belong to totally different orders. And when I stop and think over some I know, I wonder where exactly they should be put. Certainly the ‘Valley’ shape, set up on its curved crane, like a big ‘C’ spring with a lamp-bowl atop, is neither a ‘Standard’ nor a ‘Legged’ lantern. ”

“ Very occasionally we would come upon a log shanty, that most picturesque of human habitations; the walls formed of large logs, with the interstices filled up with clay, and the roof of rudely sawn boards, projecting one or two feet, and kept in their places by logs placed upon them. ”

“ Evidence that these creatures had passed that way remained in the impression of their hoofs in the soil, wherever a soft stratum intervened between the harder shelves of the rock, and had crumbled on the path into clay. ”

“ In raising the walls it is best to pinch off the roll of clay when one circle has been completed and the new roll should be begun at another point so that all the joints will not be at the same place. ”

“ Layers are produced by imitating the process of nature in making suckers; as, in making layers, a joint of the upper stem is buried in the ground, and kept moist to induce it to throw out roots; the buried stem being generally slit or twisted at the joint, so as to prevent the return of the sap, and to occasion it to expend itself in roots instead of circulating in its ordinary way through the branch. As soon as a layer has produced roots it becomes the same as a sucker, and may be treated in exactly the same manner. ”

“ Underneath is a hard, often stony or sandy layer, which, in districts where tin is worked, often contains enough tin to pay for washing. With this stony or sandy layer, is usually a considerable thickness of discoloured clay suitable for brick-making. ”

“ In one place I observed some women daubing clay with their bare hands over a wall six feet high, made of stakes as thick as their arms driven about a foot into the ground, and fastened together with grass ”

“ The scales, which have been compared to the scales of a fish or to slates on a housetop, overlap each other, the free edges protruding more or less from the fibre, while the lower or covered edges are embedded and held in the inner layer of cells. ”

“ KERAMOS Turn, turn, my wheel? Turn round and round Without a pause, without a sound: So spins the flying world away! This clay, well mixed with marl and sand, Follows the motion of my hand; Far some must follow, and some command, Though all are made of clay! ”

“ This may be described as a heterogeneous mass of clay with sand and gravel in varying proportions, enclosing the transported fragments of rock, of all dimensions, partially rounded or worn into wedge-shaped forms, and generally with surfaces furrowed or scratched, the whole material looking as if it had been scraped together. ”

“ The breadth is divided into two wedge-shaped forms, carried at an angle across the work, and up into the bank and trees on the left; opposed by the long stretching line of the horizon and round forms of the clouds and foliage,—balanced by the mass of rock on the other side. The harsh opposition of the cutting-lines of the foreground serves to attract the eye, while it reposes the distance. ”

“ Mould clay to make half an apple on a square tablet.
Think how many things shaped like a hemisphere you can mould and draw. [Pg 49]
Mould a square prism of clay. Draw it standing on a square face. Draw it lying on an oblong face.
Think of things shaped like a square prism: things you see out of doors; at home; at school; everywhere you go. Tell what you have seen.
Choose some to draw, mould or paint. [Pg 50]
Mould a square prism of clay. ”

“ Points of concentration in free enrichment of vertically placed masses are usually located in and around the inceptive axis and above or below the geometric center of the design.
Surface Enrichment of Clay
Rule 9a. Surface enrichment of clay must be so designed as to be able to withstand the action of heat to which all ware must be submitted.
Rule 9b. Incised, pierced, and modeled decoration in clay should be simple and bold and thus adapted to the character of the material.
Rule 9c. A border should not be located at the point of greatest curvature in the contour of a cylindrical form. ”

“ By stripping off layer after layer we reach eventually a last layer which is all surface, inclosing nothing. We may, if we please, observe something analogous in men, among whom the most superficial have the least in them. In consequence of this principle, the atmosphere of the smaller body finds itself obliged to cover relatively more surface, which still further thins it out. ”

“ Nevertheless, if the materials of a stratum remain in a yielding state, and do not set or solidify, they will be gradually squeezed down by the weight of other materials successively heaped upon them, just as soft clay or loose sand on which a house is built may give way. ”

“ In arranging the Lawrence gravel layers care has always been taken that no material should rest on another material more than three or four times as coarse as itself, and that each layer should be complete at every point, so that by no possibility could two layers of greater difference in size come together. ”

“ Our author enters into further details of the method of gathering the potters’ clay where there are no rivers, by digging a succession of square pits connected by a channel in the depres{52}sions between hills, into which the earth, washed by showers of rain, is refined in its passage from pit to pit. For inferior wares the earth is then collected on a table and well beaten with an iron instrument, weighing twelve pounds, three or four times, being kneaded with the fingers as a woman would in making bread, and all impurities carefully removed. ”