Last night in my Beginning & Advanced Beginning Wheelthrowing class we tackled the right way to make BOWLS. And yes, I stressed throwing “bowls on purpose, and not cylinders gone bad!” So I did a quick demo for them… answering questions & showing them how to get a nice smooth curve inside their bowls, with no beginners ledges or indents!

And yes… I explained & demo’d my LOVE for a good spiral !!!

And then after the first bowl… I sent them back to their wheels so they could start practicing. Meanwhile, I continued to throw MORE bowls… a full bag of clay’s worth… while still helping & answering questions along the way!

After I had thrown all of my demo bowls… we were back to helping students make their own bowls. BOWLS. BOWLS . BOWLS!!! Towards the end of the class, I had my students regroup a my demo wheel so we could do some alterations & decorations to the bowls… making each one of them special & unique with some simple tricks & techniques. Turning each one into a “not-so-basic bowl.”

Bowl #1 – The Plain One. The first bowl… the standard for all of the other bowls to follow!

Bowl #2 – Two Little Flutes… one finger inside, one finger outside, pinch & twist.

Bowl #3 – And if two are cute… eight simple flutes might be cuter?!

Bowl #4 – A Flared out Flange… bent out over a finger on the outside of the bowl.

Bowl #5 – If a little flared flange is cute, maybe a bigger flared flange is even better?

Bowl #6 – Combined a flared flange with four twisted flutes.

Bowl #7 – A split rim… then pinched together in eight places.

Bowl #8 – A split rim indented on two sides with the side of my wooden knife… this one might just become a “basket” with a fun strappy handle up & over the top!

Bowl #9 – Another split rim… indented in four places. No one said a bowl needs to stay round!!!

Bowl #10 – Another split rim… four indented sides… and four “out-dented” sides?! Kind of a lotus-y quatrefoil effect.

After ten bowls, it was time to add a little thick slip into the demo. So we talked about how cool slip is… and that the colored clay can be used for some many applications. That it becomes “part of” your bowl… and it will not melt & run like glaze does. But I like to work with “thick” slip so I can benefit from the thickness & textures it can create.

Bowl #11 – A great spiral. A thick layer of white slip with the end of my wood knife dragged through while the wheel was spinning.

Bowl #12 – Thick slip with some fingerpainting… an index finger squiggled through while spinning on the wheel!

Bowl #13 – Thick slip with dragged-through lines using a rubber rib.

Bowl #14 – Again with my green rubber rib, and some chattering through thick white slip!

Bowl #15 – Ombre’ blend of black & white slips.

Bowl #16 – Another ombre’ blend… and then a spiral dragged through with my wooden knife.

Bowl #17 – Another ombre’ blend also spiraled through, but this time with my finger!

The goal of this demo is multi-faceted. First, I want my students to make nice, well-thrown bowls. Second, I want them to have an arsenal of tricks & techniques to use whenever they want to. Have fun woth your clay, make cool stuff… and if it doesn’t work out, do it again! IT’S JUST CLAY!!!

And for now they’re all up in my studio safely under plastic. Because there’s “a very good chance that there might just be some more detailing” to follow… stay tuned.

After my stamping class demo, I encouraged my students to use some of my handmade stamps on their own pieces. I suggested they start by”testing” the stamps on a small slab, and then move onto their own bowls, plates & vases. They seemed to have so much fun playing with my stamps… and they made some really cool patterns on their pottery!

This week in my SURFACE DECORATION class, the topic of the week was “Stamping & Sprigging”… mostly stamping! It was fun to show-off a bit, and demonstrate how I make my pots… and then encourage them to “borrow” the technique and find a way to “flip it” to make it an option in their own styles!!!

Last night I brought some good ol’ Halloween goodie bags to class for my beginning pottery students. Each one was different with assortments of candies, OREOs, pottery tools, Halloween toys, my clay fortune cookies… and one lucky bag even had one of my soda-fired pumpkins in it! Fun times for everyone who made it to class… trudging through the snow & foregoing trick-or-treating!!!

Once again, my favorite class demo every session for my Beginners & Advance Beginning Wheelthrowers. We start by talking about how to make a “bowl on purpose instead of a cylinder gone bad.” No flat bottoms. No corner edges. No accidental flare-outs. No indented beginner’s ledge. Just nice and smooth ALL the way through the interior of every bowl, every time!

So I made one sample bowl and explained it all as I was throwing the bowl. Once they had all asked their questions, they went back to their wheel to give it a try. Meanwhile, I kept throwing a bunch of bowls. The goal is to have plenty of bowls to “play with” during the second portion of the class…. altering, fidgeting, decorating, making it “theirs” and not just some random round bowl that the wheel kinda made for them!

After awhile, we re-grouped for Part Two of the demo… and we let the fun of playing begin!

Bowl #1 – The original plain bowl… yep, they ALL started kinda like this one.

Bowl #2 – Four Fluted Edges… just a quick pinch & twist with two fingers in four places.

Bowl #3 – And if four fluted edges looks cute… maybe Eight Fluted Edges would look even better?!

Bowl #4 – A flared-out flange…just a smidge over a inch wide. Just bent out over a steady finger on the outside of the bowl at the grooved area.

Bowl #5 – And if a thin flange is nice, maybe a much wider flange would be cooler… kinda like those restaurants when you get this hug impressive bowls with a small scoop of ice cream in the bottom for $50!!!

Bowl #6 – The we combined the techniques… a thin flared flange, with four fluted twists.

Bowl #7 – A simple “denting in” with the side of my wood knife… showing that a round bowl does NOT need to stay round!

Bowl #8 – The we started splitting the rim… using the pointed end of my wooden knife. After splitting the rim, I pinched it back together in eight places.

Bowl #9 – Another split rim, but this time with eight fluted edges to give the rim little undulating waves pattern.

Bowl #10 – Split rim but then dented in at four places with the side of my wooden knife, and then dented out in four other places… kinda creating a little bit of a squares “lotus” feeling!

Bowl #11 – Another split rim pinched together, but then “bulged” outwards bit between the pinched areas.

After altering the rims of the first half, we moved on to using colored decorative slip as a surface decoration technique. I tried to encourage them to “play” more with their clay… and to decorate their pieces more… colored slip being just one simply technique.

Bowl #12 – I covered the interior with a solid layer of white slip. And then dragged the rounded end of my wooden knife through the slip to reveal this spiral as the wheel was spinning.

Bowl #13 – Another full layer of white slip.. . and then we did a bit of “finger painting” with a simple squiggle of my index finger through the slip as the bowl was rotating.

Bowl #14 – While adding the layer of white slip… I started just “plopping” the slip on with a wide paintbrush. And we were all kinda enamored with the random texture that it was creating. So we left it! Might be a tad too subtle for my liking… but…

Bowl #15 – After adding another layer of thick white slip, I did a bit of chattering… rhythmic tapping…. with a rounded plastic rib. Tapping the edge of the rib through the clay to reveal the darker clay body. The speeds with which you tap & spin the wheel both affect the pattern that shows up.

Bowl #16 – Thick white slip with the rounded edge of a plastic rib dragged through it upwards to create these lines. A little “clean-up” in the center… and it was all good.

Bowl #17 – After using a lot of white slip, we then talked about mixing & blending… so we did a simple ombre’ blend of black & white slips. We left it smooth & plain… however… I kinda feel like I might do some decorative carving through the slip after it dries to leatherhard.

Bowl #18 – For MY last demo bowl, we did another ombre’ blend… and then dragged a tool through it to create a spiral… cuz’ everyone LOVES a good spiral!!!

And then the tides turned…

I had one last bowl to decorate, and a classroom full of eager students. So I flipped the game… and told one of them that that THEY had to decorate the final bowl!!!

Bowl #19 – I gave my last bowl to Priya to decorate… and she kinda panicked at first with too many options & too many people watching!!! But then she did a simple layer of black slip over the interior… and made a very fine & tight spiral drag through it. We all LOVED it… well done Priya. And now she gets to keep & finish that bowl too!!!

So there they are, all of my class demo bowls!!!
Remember, they all started out very much the same… simple & round. But after “playing” with some fun surface decoration techniques… they all look different now! And for now they are all in my studio… and there’s a “very food chance” that there “might” be a bit more stamping & detailing on these before I call them done. MORE IS MORE!!!

So tonight’s class demo was stacked two-part vase! I threw a 4-pound bottom cylinder, and then another 4-pound top cylinder that was bottomless. After they set-up a bit, I scored & slipped them & attached the two halves. Smoothed out the connection seam… then tried to smooth it out & reshape it into a nice, tall vase shape.

As I told my class, I would have liked to have the clay set-up a lot longer. But for class demo timing, we decided to go for it even though we all knew the clay was far to wet to hold up. So when the bottom section started to squish as we knew it would, we decided to cut it in half to see how thick the walls were. And I think it looks pretty good… nice thin & even walls… but you can clearly see how wet & squishy the clay was! We all knew it should have set-up more… but sometimes it’s fun to show a “fail” demo too!!!

After class last Tuesday, I spent a little more time with my class demo bowls. Just did a little more stamping & detailing… making the bowls even more not-so-basicER!!!

And for now, they’re back under plastic for the night… going to have a LOT of trimming to do pretty soon!

For tonight’s SURFACE DECORATION class we’re tackling stamping & sprigs! Shocker, right? I mean… it was bound to happen at some point!

And I figured it would be a lot more “fun” for them if they had a blank surface to play with in class tonight. Can’t wait to see what they do with these plain bowls?!

Finishing up a dinner plate class demo with a little stamping around the rim. Sure, I could have left it plain with a nice spiral… but you know how I subscribe to the “more is more” theory of pottery!

One of my Beginning Wheel students had a glaze run & some kiln wash on the bottom of her bowl. She was trying her best to get it off… and then I offered up my DiamondCore Grinding Bat for Carly to borrow. We put it on her wheel, wet the pot & the bat… and then spun really fast & pressed the bowl down!!! Voila’… smooth & clean! One of the best tools ever… thank you DiamondCore!!!