Learning Pottery Wheel-Throwing - On my way to throwing my first 100 Pots!

Florian Gadsby, a very good wheel-throwing instructor with a series of videos on YouTube, recommends throwing your first 100 pots as soon as you learn the fundamentals. Whether they are successes or failures, you'll learn from each pot thrown. The point is not to be precious or work to perfect a piece as you're learning, but to throw them for the experience and skill-building.

I can attest to the fact that pottery throwing is work. It takes strength in muscles you don't normally use, and you have to learn not to make abrupt movements with your hands as you work with the clay. I've done multiple 3-hour practice sessions so far. As a result of each, I'e returned home tired and with various aches. That said, the practice is necessary (like learning to play a musical instrument).

On the count to 100, I'm at 32. Today, I did 11 of those that included a failed one. These are of the day's work.

Last week's class (#2) was learning to 'trim' pots. I've got many to do--and will save that for a future post.

Comments

Highjacked Blog Photo

My profile photo was highjacked ! For those of you who are blogging, be wary. There are some unscrupulous folks out there who may be using or about to use a photo(s) you've uploaded to an online photo-hosting site. At the time I created a blog, having a URL for a photo uploaded online was the only way to insert a photo in your profile or to create a custom header. There had been no problems for a long while. This morning, however, I did a Google image search for my name and found my photo linked to a totally different blog than my own! It is possible I didn't mark my file with the online photo-hosting site as private, but I didn't expect this to happen. I don't know whether marking it private would have actually averted the situation, but I'm not waiting to find out. I eliminated my membership to that online photo-hosting service today and caution anyone to be careful with uploading images to the internet . If you read the terms of agreement at many sites, you'...

Life Book 15 - Week 36 Project Completed (or nearly completed)

This project went in an entirely different direction than the Life Book 2015 lesson. That's ok because we're also working on accepting those times when we move in our own direction using the lesson purely as a launching point. This piece involved experimenting with collage on a substrate (muslin covered with joint compound), followed with paint, more collage, and then the felt, fabric and beaded plant. This piece was created through a class offered by Tamara Laporte from Willing Arts Ltd. For more information, visit this link: www.willowing.org .

Pottery Play Day

Today, I threw a couple of bowls, but my ability to center was not working. It could have been partly due to the new-to-me clay I tried using. In addition, I trimmed three others. One of those three ended up being very experimental...in that I tried a version of mishima on the interior of the bowl. Mishima is a technique of painting a leather-hard vessel with an underglaze(s), then waxing the layer, and finally...carving a design in the underglaze/wax surface before the vessel is fired into bisque. I tried it, and we'll see how it comes out. Below are the five vessels of Batch #8 that I brought home today. Of them, there are two new things I tried. The stripy one was done with one base layer plus a second layer of alternating painted stripes of the base color and mulberry. The other first is where I used a base layer and added two different lip colors of different widths. Lately, I've noticed other potters getting some great results...

Cay Denise

Search This Blog