This week in my Tuesday night Beginning & Advanced Beginning Wheelthrowing class, we tackled making bowls. Yep… making bowls on purpose instead of a cylinder gone bad. I started with my bowl demo… starting with a good interior curve right from the start! After we had covered all of the “basocs” of basic bowls… they went back to their whee;s to start throwing their own bowls. Meanwhile… I continued throwing more bowls. A total of EIGHTEEN “basic” bowls.
When I had made all of MY owls, we re-grouped at my wheel for a little “decorating” FUN!!! My goal for the secodn part of the demo is to encourage them to PLAY WITH THEIR CLAY!!! To do some decorating… to make thier bowls their own. The wheel pretty much makes them round… now they get to make them their own style!!! So I quickly took my 18 “matching” bowls and started doing some quick & simple “tricks” to make them all different & special!!!
Bowl One – Here’s the “basic” bowl.. the starting point for all the others!!!
Bowl Two – Two simple “flutes” to add some flair. One finger inside, one finger outside. pinch and twist.
Bowl Three – And if two flutes are cute, maybe eight would be better?!
Bowl Four – A simple one-inch flange bent out to “widen” the bowl.
Bowl Five – And if one-inch is nice, maybe three inches would be better?!
Bowl Six – And then a combined, bent-out flange and four fluted twists.
Bowl Seven – Using a metal dragon-scaling tool… a simple flower indented in the bottom.
Bowl Eight – A split-rim pinched together in eight places.
Bowl Nine – Another split rim – dented inwards at four places.
Bowl Ten – Another split rim this time dented inwards four times, and outwards four times!
Bowl Eleven – This was last session’s “challenge” bowl… a TRIPLE split rim and then fluted in eight places. My students from last session now refer to this one as the “churro” bowl!
And then I introduced my “beginner’s” to colored slip… and then benefits.
Bowl Twelve – a simple coat of thick white slip applied and then a spiral dragged through it with the curved end of my wooden knife… which I’ve now been told is called “The Potter’s Thumb.”
We noticed that the thick white slip wasn’t showing up very well for my demo purposes…
so we switched to black!
Bowl Thirteen – A layer of black slip – and then banded rings with “The Potters Thumb.”
Bowl Fourteen – A layer of black slip, and then a chattered pattern made by rhythmic tapping of a rounded rib as the bowl is spinning.
Bowl Fifteen – A layer of black slip, followed by some thick white slip squirt-bottled onto the surface… ala Ryan Greenheck!
Bowl Sixteen – Then using the same squirt bottle, I piped on a white slip spiral.
Bowl Seventeen – Using a couple strips of wet newspaper, I outlined a triangle… layered in some thick white slip, draged my finer through it to make some texture lines and then peeled away the newspaper “stencils.”
Bowl Eighteen – Always up for a challenge… this is the one this session. Stacey was sitting-in on class and she saw this bowl on her Instagram feed. So I tried my best to “mimic” the style… flaring out the flanged rim, denting down the four accent areas, and then piping some thick white slip accents. Coincidentally, Stacey was also the one who challenged me to the triple rim “churro” bowl last session
So for now they’re all “under wraps” in my studio. I think there’s a”very good chance” that there might still be a bit of embellishing & stamping to be done on them… maybe, just maybe?!
