How To: Kurinuki Box
Kurinuki is a Japanese term that refers to the process of carving from a solid block of clay to obtain interior space. It’s a really fun way to explore handbuilding and try something new. And is especially helpful if you have some clay that’s just too dry to throw with or roll a slab from. You can easily pound it in to a shape and start carving.
The steps are simple, and the tools needed are minimal. Here’s the how to:
Step 1. Pound your clay in to a shape. It can be any amount, any shape. We made some rectangles to be made in to boxes. But you can use the same techniques to carve cups and bowls. Once you’ve got your shape, go ahead and smooth it out a bit (but only if you want! texture can be fun too). From here you want to let your clay dry out a bit. Not completely, but enough so that you cant poke a finger in to it and not leave a big indent. This will make the carving easier.
Step 2. Cut in half. If you’re making a box, you need to cut your shape in two, thus creating the lid. If you’re making a cup or a bowl, you can skip this step.
Take your wire tool and wrap it around your clay as level as possible. Now with one hand holding your clay and the other on the wire, pull the wire all the way through, keeping it as level as you can. You may feel some resistance because the clay is more dry than normal, but that’s ok.. keep pulling. Before you separate the two parts, mark the top and bottom so you know how they fit together.
Step 3. Let the carving begin! For our box, we added a register to the lid, that’s an inner flange that allows the lid to nest inside the base. Start by carving away the outside rim of the lid on the underside. We carved about 1/4 of an inch but this can be as deep or wide as you want. Just keep in mind that the register is what will guide the thickness of the walls on the base.
Now, hollow out your base. Carve away a little at a time, the more you try to take at once the higher the risk of snagging or going too deep. We like to carve a little, then test the lid, and keep carving to be sure we’re getting a semi-snug fit. But it doesn’t have to be perfect! That’s the fun of kurinuki.
After you’ve got the inside of the base and your lid fitted together, you can add or carve feet, carve away the lids interior, change the shape of the top….the options are endless.
Once your shape is where you want it, you can smooth out any burls or carving lines.
OR! You can leave them! They’re a sign that your piece was made by hand. We left the interior of our box rough for some added texture and smoothed the exterior so we could carve some more intentional lines into the surface later.
Step 4. Decorate. You can carve designs in to your surface, add embellishments, attach a knob. Or keep it simple. If you have some underglaze on hand you can add some color. We painted the exterior with black then used the needle tool to carve simple lines in to the surface, removing the underglaze and revealing the raw clay. If you’re painting your piece with underglaze, always remember to leave the bottom of your piece, or the feet, clean!
Once you’ve got one box under your belt, you can start to explore new shapes. We tried a 3 part box ( the blue one ) using the same steps but adding another cross section.
That’s it! A simple technique with endless possibilities. If you need some inspiration, follow the #kurinuki on Instagram for some fantastic examples of all sorts of styles and shapes.
