" Help !! " ... corrections to common throwing errors - Nov 7th with Simon Leach

hi folks welcome I thought I would do a video I thought I'd do a video on I'm just trying to think what I would entitle this video but I didn't title it something like how to make corrections to ugly pots so fourteen ounces of clay I've just been making some a different style of a tankard mug I'll sure - tell me what you think it's a more dumpy affair you could say a little bit broad in the beam so yeah I'll leave the camera that I get a lot of people on workshops and join the curse of course of making their pots you know clearly the pot has gone wrong but I see there are a lot of people it's like they don't know how to get it right again they had their know how to get it back from the predicament that has got into they don't know how to get it back to center they don't know how to you know make the necessary corrections because when we're throwing we are constantly in the process of throwing making little minor Corrections as we go and it's very important to know how to do those so I just thought take a lump of clay and eivin really thought through this video too much but I thought we just get the camera down there and we will put ourselves in some predicaments let's see and then we'll see how we can make the necessary Corrections to get out of those predicaments so we're gonna bring that camera in a little bit like that okay I hope this video will be instructive and helpful let's just see how we go let us see how we go okay so one predicament one predicament that people get into a very common predicament is that is though their pot is not properly on center to start with their lump of clay it may have got it on center like that they may have well different scenarios happen people get the lump of clay on center like that and then in the process of opening out the lump of clay and opening out the the base making the base shape like so they've opened it out it looks like that they're aiming to get to that somewhere in the process it goes off center that is very common another case is whereby people they have the lump of clay going around on the wheel like like like like so and then they try to put a hole they try to break in a hole like that okay don't do that okay until your lump of clay is absolutely smack in the center don't whatever you do don't whatever you do break-in okay you must have break-in until it's dead center all right okay so I'm just going to break into this and now I'm going to open it out so now here here here's one of those occasions where the pot you suddenly find your pot is doing that what do you do to get it back in center if at all possible and for people who are beginners that's maybe a tall order to get a pot like that that's going off like that back into the center so what I'm going to do here is I'm going to put one hand here one hand here and I'm going to just I'm first of all I'm gonna really sent to the outside the outside wall of the pot steady it so steady the outside first and then once you've got the outside steady then put your your inside hand in and Center it up properly again it is possible to do that here's a thought and maybe a tip for some of you if you can use your strongest hand which for most people is their right hand if you can use your right hand as you're steadying hand so a lot of people I notice are using their left hand to do the the steady like this and they're breaking in with their right hand now I was always taught to use my right hand as my steadying hand because my right hand is my stronger hand so that's gonna be the hand I want to to keep that pot running true running on center so I'm going to use my right hand and I'm going to use my left hand to go in to break in and to to widen the form alright there's a little bit of food for thought there for you okay let's just you see what I have to do is create certain predicaments here which goes against the grain for me in it as you can appreciate because I I so let's let's deal with let's first of all let's just pull up just pull up some clay alright so have wheel speed is all-important don't have your wheel going too fast okay if you have your wheel going too fast you're gonna lose the water faster just just think of that okay every time you put water onto your your pot if your wheel is going too fast you're gonna lose that water all the faster so slow down don't be in such a hurry okay and that's one of the problems with electric wheels solution is get yourself a leash trailer wheel no seriously but it's just slow down okay get underneath the claim lift it and make sure that your lift speed is also sufficiently fast enough okay because if you have a slow lift speed that's also going to cause you to run out of water sooner than you want to all right now let's start off with a a pot that is is too pinched in at the bottom and I'm saying you know okay so the ideal is let's go sample alright let's say we are we're aiming it at that okay which is a a straight walled cylinder okay so you see that the form goes straight down to the wheel head but my pot is is like this so somebody will call me over and you know I will see a repeated tendency for people with all their pots they like I like this at the bottom I'll say to them look you need to know how to make corrections here you need to because that's not what that's not what we're aiming at okay we're aiming at that not that okay so how do we get how do we make a correction well what we're going to do is we're going to go right down to the floor of the pot right into the corner there and we are going to simply push that clay out okay and fill it in basically right right at the base there so you want to push it right out at the base there and once you've done that you might have to push it in a bit just above there just to got a pine needle or something I don't know what it is okay so so part of the exercise of learning how to throw some of that is learning how to throw vertically learning how to throw to train your eye to throw a straight line so these are important little adjustments that we need to make let's so that's that scenario let's imagine let's imagine we have a different scenario where the wall of the pot is looking a bit like that for example you know they've can't seem to get the walls straight because it's it's got all these these are these undulations in the wall so how do we go from there to there let's do it right so I think of this as a horizon when I look at the side of the pot if you look out of the window look at the horizon you look at the hills so where that where the mountains are sticking up okay we need to push them in where the where there are valleys here here here we need to lift them up okay the way we do that is let's go down here there's a valley here it's it's it's narrow here isn't it so we're just simply going to go down opposite that that narrow point with our fingers and just just push out there again here there's another valley just push it out there touch and I've up here at the top there's a valley push it out okay if there are mountains we want to push them in from the outside with my finger on the outside and if we do that as you'll see now that is better okay finally you can take you can take a stick like this and hold it there and just finalize it the the form you know you get it using your throwing stick to it will just take off the the slurry and clean the shape just be careful if you're using a throwing stick you don't use it like that okay you always want to use a stick like this at an angle like that okay so that as it's going around you're not touching the stick all at once all down the side because that is going to create too much drag on one side which will pull the pot off-center okay so what else well sometimes another common well we know the answer - of course but another another common correction that needs to be made is is that the the top of the pot up here is going up and down like this how do we make a correction to that well most likely what we're going to need to do is take our needle pintle all right and resting your your hand or wrist somewhere solid like on the side of your wheel and have enough speed okay don't try and cut off do a cut off with a wheel going I'd slow like this real slow what you're gonna need to do is make sure you've got sufficient speed all right hold touch my thumb here and my finger on that side and then insert the needle slightly at a raked back angle like this okay insert the needle dead truth steady push it in and lift alright cut off the top like that it's very important that when you put the needle in that your hand is not wavering up and down like this because that obviously is not going to give you a straight cut off so to give a straight cut off make sure you have enough speed and hold the needle in a slightly at an angle insert the needle till it touches your finger once it's touched your finger let it go around a couple of times and then lift as you lift the needle it should lift let's do it another time insert the needle hold lift you should be able to lift it off on the needle like that okay so that's a common now a quite another mistake that occurs and I can't really demonstrate this but it's what we call a torque twist that's basically where the the the top and the bottom part of the pot they they twist like this and you get a characteristic ripple in the side of the in the side of the pot say Midway say something like this you'll see that the sort of rippling it's where the clay is gone thinner there now that could have been caused by you running out of water so it's very important most people's problems stem from a lack of water so I'm just going to show you this I've shown it to you many times I'll show it to you again take your your fingers like that split them put them over the side of the pot like that with the fingers actually touching the wall of the pot and put water there just there it will run down your fingers onto the side of the pot and it'll lubricate the side of the pot inside and out once you've done that not until you're then ready to go down to the bottom of the pot okay and with a finger posture like that with your outside finger this one slightly lower than the one on the inside okay you're then gonna start your lift all the way up so the Bulge that you see there is my inside finger is in the Bulge in that in that bulge when you get to the very top of the pot okay I let my outside finger which was until then underneath lower okay as we get to the very top of the pot I'll make this finger come up all right this finger comes up on the outside here just in this last section here as I'm pulling up the side of the pot then now the outside finger comes up alright the reason being is the white the reason why is because when we bring this finger up like that it exerts a pressure on that on the wall of the pot inwards okay so as it's coming up it keeps it in at the top just remember that and apply it see what you what results you get there's a lot again a lot of people when they are lifting their they they're ending up and their pot is is is looking like that and they're thinking oh every part I make it's it's wide at the top well one of the things you've got to bear in mind is that we've got centrifugal force here which is forcing the clay outwards all the time so when you're lifting you want to lift in such a way that you're mindful to keep it in at the top especially in our last half half section was or third the top third you want to make sure you've got to think I've got to keep this in because if I don't now some people some people have their elbow of their left hand okay they have it down the whole time so that you see how my hand is as I'm lifting so what happens the side of their hand here is pushing on the top of the edge of the pot you see how I'm changing my my-my-my you see my hand position my elbow is up high on my left hand that's how you want to to learn to throw as your pot as you begin to lift it up you've got to lift up this arm as well all right okay let's suppose that our pot is like that how we're going to get it straight again this is how I'm gonna do it watch just a little bit of water just there all right and now there's different ways of doing this but you can you can just just color it like this alright just by putting your hands around it and very gently gently being the word bring it here okay bringing it back to being straight again let's let's imagine that we have a scenario where the pot is wide in the middle and we don't want it wide in the middle like that how can they get that from looking like that how can I get it back to looking like that let's tackle that on okay again a little water this time we're going to do six points of contact like that okay so one two three four five six what we're gonna do is and when you keep these Fingaz hands opposite each other okay when we do this not like this but dead opposite like this not like that like that we're gonna get down below that bulge so you want to go down below the Bulge and then you want to just bring keeping your fingers in the same position slowly bring your both hands up together and then we we've pushed in we've pushed in that bulge easy so basically if you have if you have high spots like that you want to push them in from the outside six points of content and you can push them in if you've got narrow areas like that in your form and you want to straighten them out you're going to have to go down on the inside right opposite that that constricted area and fill it by pushing out I mean this is not rocket science really it's pretty it's pretty basic but I mean surprising people not everybody gets it I understand when people are learning there's lots of different things they're learning and they didn't always see things clearly but I'm just trying to give you some pointers okay basically those are the common if you're a beginner thrower if maybe you're somebody's having having some some issues with your throwing submit inability to make corrections you might find that this video is useful to you all right there's probably other scenarios that I haven't mentioned the torque twist as I spoke about it sometimes people are grabbing I'll show you one more one more thing while we're here let's just get rid of this lump I'll show you one other thing so and some people ask me and they say how many times I'm you should I cone up the clay two times three times and I say no once just once is enough just do it once and do it well and I should do you so two cone up the clay pull it up just by grabbing it here and here and lifting turn it up Center it down break in now some people when they're opening out the clay which I'm gonna do now they they have it looking don't think I wish this clay up Brewer they have it looking a bit something a bit like that okay if you can see that let's just get the camera down there so I mean we need to see what you do you don't just talk there it is can you see that I want you to take note of the fact that this is rather thick here you see that now really it shouldn't you don't want to have that situation where it looks like that a lot of people will and then from there they go in underneath here and they start to try to lift that they get underneath it and they start to lift it okay that's too thick at this point here for you to get underneath and start lifting it so what you need to do so when I do this I I'm gonna get off the wheel and go over here so you can see my hair position okay as I'm opening out this thumb here okay is pushing there on that edge like that alright and then that is see how that pressure there has thinned that a cinder here okay so don't have it as I had it before fit there make sure that it is alright now you're in a position to just go like this kind of switch it in and get underneath it and now start lifting that upwards always lift it upwards and inwards so you end up with a cone shape like that okay that's very important in the early stages of your pop but you keep it you get you keep it conical now I'm pushing in creating a lifting point there okay and now lifting up the code that I created from the last pull take your lift up to the top when you get to the top here okay when you've pulled up to the top take it right to the top but don't go over the top alright don't fix bayonets and go over the top all right we don't want to do that you do do that you will make the top of your top you'll make it met you'll make it messy on the time uneven all right so when you do your lift bring this up all the way to the top there it is right at the top hold it there a second

Channel: Simon Leach

Views: 28,788

Rating: 4.9398499 out of 5

Keywords: throwing clay, how to pot on the wheel, ups and downs of throwing, how to correct a wonky pot, bernard leach potter, david leach potter, john leach potter, ceramics today, hand made pottery, la ceramica hecho a mano, vall d'alba, millheim, wheel thrown pottery, leach wheel, foot operated wheels, arts and crafts, leach tradition, workshops with simon leach, simon leach potter teacher, pottery tutorials, bezalel israel

Id: zllvgK4g_bc

Length: 29min 51sec (1791 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 07 2019