Making a plate with no mold.

Today we learned how to make a nicely shaped plate with no cast mold. 

Roll out required size piece of clay.

Build a frame leaving enough room for the clay to cover the sides of it.

Use a strong piece of cloth to lift the slab. Two people needed to coordinate their moves to slap the clay down with some force simultaneously.

At this point one could use a sock or some other piece of fabric filled with grit to pad the clay down even more to get steeper curve.

If you want to use slip to scratch into, it would be suggested to apply it before using this technique when the slab is still flat.

This kind of shaping leaves possibilities for adding clay details also to the top part of the plate which hump mold would not be suited for.