My first day of a new-to-me pottery class was less than stellar. I made a lot of mis-steps that were frustrating. One of those mis-steps included scraping the side of my hand when trying to do 'centering'. So, I couldn't practice for a couple of days. During that time, I reviewed YouTube videos and found a superb one on the subject by Florian Gadsby. He is a great teacher/guide! His channel has other wheel-throw pottery techniques too. The video recording is very good because of the close-ups that help viewers to 'see' the process more clearly.
Today, I went to the studio for a first day of practice. My goal was to be able to repetitively center pieces of clay on the wheel. The two vessel starts below were successfully centered and are now drying (for about 8 hours) before the first firing. Granted, they look a bit odd, but that's ok...I'm learning. Beyond that, I did them all by myself.
One of my discoveries today was that clay can become overly wet and if it is, the project is likely to be lost. I had many other starts today that ended because they were too wet. What that means is that the too-wet clay cannot hold the form it has been shaped into and ends up falling apart or failing in some unrecoverable way. So, I need to work on how to avoid this in the future.
Before my next class, I'll be watching more of Florian's videos. Even others at the studio know of him and had great things to say.
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