Beginners guide to taking pottery off the wheel

well done day what about potholders screw your pot holders Cathy [Music] hello you dirty Potter's how are you today today we're gonna talk about the primary technique that I use for taking things off of the wheel and this is the very first technique that I ever ever learned and the thing that I like about this one is that you don't need any extra equipment you don't need any pot holders the only thing you really need is a pair of these wire cutting tools right here and maybe a little bit of water and you should be okay now I still use this technique to this very very day I most of the time either leave it on the wheel or on a bat or I take it off and put it on a very larger piece of wood but I will say even though I see a lot of other Potter's do it a lot of different ways whatever works for you is fine remember if it's stupid and it works and you're getting the same if not better effect then it's not really stupid now is it let's get started with my favorite way to take stuff off of the wheel but first we gotta throw a ball [Music] [Music] let's say you just made this beautiful ball and you want to get it off of the wheel but it stuck real real good to the wheel this is the first way I ever learned to take a ball off the wheel without use of any extra equipment and it's one of my favorite waves Potter tip it's always a good idea to turn your wheel off when you're doing this simply because it's really difficult to watch your feet while you're concentrating on this sometimes and I will admit sometimes I have hit the pedal and it's gone flying off the wheel so when you first start out just as a precaution go ahead turn the wheel off and then when you're ready to throw turn it back on again I know that last tip seemed really stupid but trust and believe me it has happened to so many people so what you first want to do is go ahead get your sponge or even just your hand grab a little bit of water from wherever your water source is and put it at the very edge of the wheel just like this go ahead and get a good amount on there after that you're gonna go ahead and get your wire tool and hold it just like this at both ends you can't see the other end because it's way the hell up there get some of this water right here and do you see how the water moves with the wire tool go ahead take that water and move it right underneath your pot and just slice it and each and every time you take more water the water here is gonna start to hydroplane underneath your piece and it's gonna start to slowly slowly move it so your job is to get this wire get the water to carry on the wire and take it underneath the piece over and over again see in on the third time it usually moves just like this after you put a little bit of water under your piece and you've moved it it's pretty easy to move from this point on as long as you touch the very very bottom it doesn't really morph the piece in any way shape or form see you can touch it all you want and the water still underneath here so it's really easy to slider on your wheel your job now is to get it off of the wheel make sure there's perfect roundness you just created doesn't morph so go ahead take this and put your hand at the very bottom of your wheel right here and slide it right off and as you do you're gonna lay your hand as flat as you can just like this you see in the bowl still safe it's still perfectly round now you're gonna take this and put it on here without morphing it this is gonna seem super super weird but trust me it works what you're gonna do is you're gonna touch the very edge of the bottom of your bowl to wherever you're gonna put your bowl to let it dry and you're gonna touch it at the very very bottom just like this and as you do you're gonna see the top of your bowl morph a little bit but that's okay if you let this bottom touch it one at a time and let it fall very very gently and don't plop it down it'll go right back into its original form and there you have it that is the first way I ever learned to take a bowl off the wheel I don't use any extra equipment I just use a wire tool and a little bit of water and I'm good to go you know what let's do it one more time for the non-believers out there [Music] okay first we're gonna put a little bit of water right here and now our job is to take this water with the wire tool and carry it underneath the pot until the pot move one two and you really want to get it all in the water each and every time you do it three and I'm just gonna keep doing it see and there it goes and now we're gonna touch the very very bottom one more time and we're gonna let it lay flat on our palms just like this and the bowl is not morphed or bent at all in this plant we have completely flat palms and fingers and as I set this down one part at a time from the bottom to the tray right here I'm gonna notice that it's gonna bend a little bit but that's okay don't freak out it's gonna morph a little bit but if you do it properly and you let it down very very slowly one part at a time at the bottom you will end up with a perfectly round Bowl you do have to remember that the entire point of actually taking this wire tool right here and putting it underneath the piece in order to detach it from the wheel head and the piece itself because if you try and take it off immediately this is kind of hard to take off it's already stuck together because of the moisture and the clay it's very very sticky the only difference is with this technique you can get a little bit of this water right here and move it just like this underneath the piece so that when you take the piece off of the wheel head you can easily slide it off and then transport it to another surface part of tip number two if you end up getting some water and sliding it underneath the piece and it doesn't detach right away what you can do is if you know it's detached you can touch the very bottom and push it off of the wheel head and it usually slides right off just like that it's one of the primary reasons I love this technique is because it works on bowls it works on cups it works on pots it works on teapots it even works on little pieces as long as you don't throw the little piece off of a hump you're essentially good to go the other thing that I love about it that it is technically hydroplaning you put a bunch of water underneath your piece and that means that it's gonna slide right off of the wheel head any direction you want if you mess up and you can't take it from this area over here and you put it over here you don't have try and remove it you can very simply just kind of hydroplane it anywhere you want and take it right off of the wheel just like this at any other part of the wheel well thank you guys for joining me today the reason I'm making this video is because I feel like it's one of the things that our beginners should know how to do is to take things off of the wheel without using pot holders or any extra piece of equipment because there's only so many pot haulers that go around and it cost a little bit of money so this is kind of the easy and traditional way to take stuff off of your wheel but again thank you guys for joining me today if you'd like to see any of my artwork the links are always down below for your beautiful Potter eyes to see and I will see you dirty Potter's next week [Music]

Channel: Earth Nation Ceramics

Views: 15,838

Rating: 4.9201994 out of 5

Keywords: pottery, clay, ceramic, art, wheel thrown, glaze, glaze recipe, recipe, cone 5, cone 6, beginner, make, craft, ceramic art, help, bowl

Id: YFDWo7ZGnBs

Length: 7min 25sec (445 seconds)

Published: Thu May 10 2018