The Different Types of Crafts You Probably Didn't Know

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What comes to mind when the word craft is mentioned? Craftsmanship has been around from as early as anyone can recall. When a number of people talk about crafts, they tend to limit their conversation to the most common types of arts, such as scrapbooking and pottery, and ignore a considerable number that falls deep in this category. This article is to inform and educate you about the various types of crafts. Craft encompasses almost everything designed by hand. Below are the different types of crafts you can learn at Craftsmenind.com.

Ceramics and glass crafts

The ceramic work has been around since 24,000 BC. According to history, this is a long way before humans adopted metalwork. For those new to this term, ceramics are hard material made of heated minerals and curved to the desired designs. As technology has advanced over the years, the use of some of the hardest metals has been incorporated in ceramics. Ceramics are often confused with pottery, but the two are distinct with different features and a different process of crafting.

Glass-ceramics - comprises most of the modern items ranging from cookware, industrial equipment, scientific and lab equipment, medical devices, to bakeware and a lot more. They are produced through the process of controlled crystallization. These ceramics have both glass and ceramic processes. They have the strength and durability of ceramics and glass-like properties. There's quite a diverse field of glass-ceramics that craftsmen design depending on the desired use. Glass is often preferred by quite a substantial number of artists for various reasons.

Three-dimensional rendering - This is an art that brings out the ambiguity and the morality in the ancient society, mysteries, and politics. The ability of three-dimensional glass sculptures to appear and dissolve through each dimension, depending on the viewer's position, makes them more enticing.

Glass mosaics - Most of the ancient society worship places used glass-ceramics to decorate and symbolize their gods on the structures. Quite several modern religions have adopted this as they offer a more precise version of their beliefs.

Hanging glasses and paintings on glass - Paintings on glass has a sea of uses in the modern world. From labels on wine bottles, to advertisement screens, the applications tend to increase day by day. The paintings tend to bring a sense of ownership and uniqueness to the artist or the designated client.

Tiny pieces of jewelry - Glass is in any way moldable to a size and shape depending on a client's need. This characteristic makes glass-ceramic a piece of cake to the designers and those in the role of crafting them, as well as gaining a countless number of clients.

Fiber and textile

These are designed using textiles and fabrics. This art has maintained its legacy and relevance from as long as anyone can recall, since clothing has remained a necessity and hold profound significance in different cultures. Back in the day, all this used to be done by hand, but with the new era of technology, humans have made the process easier and more efficient through industrial mass production. Fiber and textile crafts have a broad scope of products. Some of the products include:

• Lacemaking - the production of ornaments through an intricate and finely done hand stitching. These are made by twisting, intertwining, and looping the materials to come up with the desired patterns.

• Leatherwork - Leather has been used in various industries for several eras. This type of craft draws in two significant steps – curving and sewing, and some physical processes like dying, cementing, and finishing the leather.

• Basketry - This has been a pride to a preponderance of dominant cultural groups all over the globe. This is the production of items such as baskets, bags, and mats through techniques such as weaving, coiling, and plaiting.

• Knitting - is the creation of fabrics through interlocking yarns into a procession of interconnected loops using handheld needles or mechanized needles.

• Weaving - This requires a loom to combine two sets of yarn, namely warp and weft, to produce a fabric. The process necessitates that the warp yarn is fed vertically through the room to form parallel threads, and the weft through the side. The loom alternates the weft over and under the warp horizontally. There are many looms, both mechanical and hand-operated.

Stone crafts

Stone crafts have been around from as early as the Stone Age era. Lasting through a period of about 2.5 million years, the Stone Age is said to have been around until about 5,000 years ago when humans advanced to metal works. The latter mentioned period incorporates a vast number of our evolutionary relatives, including the Neanderthals and Denisovans. They used tools curved from stones as hunting tools, weapons, and ornaments. The evolved human adopted this technique, and with their advanced grasp on design and technology, they have since then improved the art and came up with more complex and sophisticated ways of curving the stones into magnificent sculptures and other models. Below is a detailed list of the most common and elaborate types of stone crafting:

• Stonemasonry - is an ancient art task of preparing, designing, and constructing architectural structures using stones. Masons used a variety of tools to come up with the desired structures. These tools included mallets, chisels, straightedges, and many more.

• Letter carvings on stones - The fittest example of this is Moses and the ten commandments. As the Christian scripture dictates, the first set on the ten commandments was printed on two stone tablets. Letter carving on stones presumes to form a letter on rocks using a sharp tool. With the advancement in technology, letter carving has been made easier by the use of modern tools, unlike the traditional way where chisels and hammers were used.

• Mosaics and inlaying - In the distant past, mosaics were often made of uncut pebbles of uniform measurements. Stones naturally offered a basic range of colors and tints, which made the artistic design even more elegant. Mosaic in the field of art incorporates designing a surface with several closely set materials to come up with one general art. Inlaying, on the other hand, uses a hollowed surface in which the various elements are laid in different patterns to achieve a general design.

• Knap craft - This is a craft that involves chipping and flaking stones to make the desired shape. Mostly high silica stones are used as they are brittle. The craftsman always strikes a rock to come up with the hankering design. This art has been dated back from the Prehistoric Era to the Historical Period. The technique requires the artist to know how the stones being used break. Otherwise, it would end up a hectic piece of work.

• Stone carvings - This technique is dated as early as the existence of the Sumerians, the oldest beings we know of to have roamed the earth. The new Stone Age stone carvings are predated from as early as ten thousand to two thousand before Christ's existence. Though the Stone Age sculptures have been slightly swapped during the Medieval age, the changes are visible in the Egyptian and ancient Greek and Roman statues. Various artists use different skills, tools, and materials to come about their work. The modern technology is using advanced devices, such as lasers, to precisely curving the rocks to their sought-after designs. This enables them to program them into a more appealing state compared to the antique ones.

Metal crafts

This is the craft that's said to have liberated the modern society from the captivity of the ancient stone craft. With metal crafting, the contemporary society has achieved a considerable length of technological advancement. From more sophisticated weapons and attack vehicles to advanced structures such as bunkers, metal crafting has revolutionized every digital aspect of the modern world. Metal crafts mainly involve the crafting of the brittle and ductile metals. Below are some exquisite metal craft techniques and types.

Enameling - The main aim of enameling is to achieve a smooth and appealing metallic coat. Although other substances such as glass may be used to complement the design, these are just little add-ons to spice up and make the final product look more adorable and eye-catching. This is quite an ancient technique that has been scientifically dated back to 1,400 BC. Ancient kingdoms used these enamels to crown their royalties for respect and recognition as well.

Blacksmithing - is a technique not entirely forgotten in the African nation, where some Swahili language referred to as 'Jua kali.' In the ancient world, blacksmiths were in a way very essential, in that they were responsible for arming the armies with their fighting tools. Some of these tools remain a mystery to date, depending on their proposed level of technology to their efficiency.

The above are some of the crafts civilization has managed to master and make the most out of. Most of them are surely adopted from an ancient culture and modified to perfection by modern society.