Beginners Intro to Wedging your Clay.

give it a little smiley face right there pretend you're happy to be in class [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello your dirty potters how are you today today we're gonna talk about wedging clay now if you're a true beginner and not only do you not know how to wedge your clay but you most likely don't understand the importance of wedging your clay before you even throw it on the wheel and today that's what we're here to talk about let's start off with some very basic knowledge this is a bag of clip while this is most likely what you're working with this isn't what most people consider real earth clay this is ready-made clay specifically for crafters real clay comes from out of the earth mountains streams or other natural sources some people also call it wild clay but that's not what you're working with today you're working with ready-made bagged clay this means the company or a corporation got it from any of those earthly sources and put it through a process add an extra chemicals to it and bagged it up just ready for you to use on your wheel and while these companies have done an amazing job to grab it from natural sources process it get all the air out of it compress it and make sure all the clay platelets are well stuck together ready-made for you to craft with you still have to wedge this year so give it a little smiley face right there pretend you're happy to be in class before you put this clay on the wheel and start crafting with it it is best that you wedge it it familiarizes you with the clay it gets the clay out of its old memory and it aligns the clay platelets there are many benefits to wedge in your clay before you put it on the wheel and to be honest with you it just makes it an easier process to craft with and there are two main ways that myself and most Potter's that I know know how to wedge come on come with me [Music] now this here is plaster and the reason that most people watch on plaster is because it's very absorbent and very durable this is an extremely good material for soaking up the water inside of your clay body although I've seen other people use other materials such as wood and concrete I myself wage on my concrete floor over here because it absorbs water just like this plaster or some wood does but if you're in class you're most likely using plaster just like this to let your clay dry out and wedge on yours is probably like way bigger though yeah I'm just gonna get rid of this now there are two primary ways that I know and most Potter's I know know how to wedge and that's Rams head wedging and spiral wedging no one way of wedging is better than the other and while spiral wedging looks a little bit cooler you really only need it for very large pieces of clay and most beginners or even myself after about six years of using clay I'm majority of Li use Rams head wedging it's not as difficult it's a way easier on my muscles and I really don't need this method of wedging this method of wedging over here doesn't really help all that much in comparison to Rams head wedging it's honestly just preference no way is better than the other Rams head wedging is called Rams head wedging because [Music] when you're done wedging it it kind of looks like a Rams head or a really grumpy grandpa except for nobody wants to call it grumpy grandpa wedging so we did Graham's head instead it even makes a spiral for the horns over here and the more that you wedge usually the more horns that you get just like oh oh there's a couple of reasons you want to wedge in the first place number one clay usually comes in a bag like this and this bag comes in the shape of a square like this clay has a habit of sticking to its form and for lack of a better term it kind of has a memory to it the wedge in your clay is going to kind of get rid of that memory you don't exactly want it in this square shape when you start putting it on a wheel and crafting with it because you're gonna be spinning around in a circle and that circle is in the form of a ball and that's the final shape we're trying to get while wedging oh but Dante I don't want to wedge my clay it hurts and I'm lazy keep in mind if you don't get rid of this shape or the memory of this shape you're gonna have a much harder time throwing on the wheel and you're just gonna make your experience with throwing on the wheel a little bit less satisfactory you're gonna have a bad time and as a beginner who most likely doesn't know how to deal with uneven clay yet you're studying your clay to be uneven from the get-go so it's best that you wedge your clay for that one reason the second reason is that clay is technically made of these little platelets and these little platelets can bind and stick together the more you condense them the more tighten they are and the easier it is to control your clay these platelets binding together make the clay a little bit stronger and easier to form with and that's the second reason you really want to wedge your clay you're essentially re condensing those platelets inside the clay body the third reason isn't as important right now because the clay company took very good care of this clay for me as it is now ready to use fresh out of the bag but if I through with this clay put it back in the back took it back out I would almost have to real edge it the reason for that is when you threw it you most likely got a little bit of air bubbles in your clay because it's not like you condensed your clay and put it back in the bag you most likely have some air trapped in between the folds of your clay and re wedging it compresses that clay so tightly that the air bubbles stuck in the folds or the manifolds of your clay will actually pop right out sometimes you can even hear it many crafters myself included will tell you it is almost the most annoying thing ever to find air bubbles in your clay body when you're throwing your clay on the wheel and it'll also mess up your product especially if you're a beginner and you don't know how to deal with air bubbles properly that being said let's go over Rams head wedging first you want to start your Rams head wedging by grabbing the top two corners and compressing downwards in this motion you're essentially not pushing sideways you're not pushing down you're kind of pushing diagonally and down as you go forward into this direction make sure to keep your hands on the sides of your clay body and don't flip them on the top if you put them on the top you're essentially going to be pushing your clay body into the ground or whatever you're wedging on you really want these two horns to stick in which is why at the beginning of this I told you to hold on to the sides and compress inwards while you're compressing downwards if you're just compressing downwards you're simply going to smash your clay look at that that's the most unhappy Ram I have ever seen in my entire life also if you're pushing from just the sides you're basically just condensing it into itself right here and you're not really wedging at all the point of this is to go into a spiral coming towards yourself while you're pushing outwards and it's basically going in the motion of a wave over and over again grab the sides push downwards and out make sure to hold on with your fingertips up here so you can bring it back up and do it again if you're truly a beginner there's no shame in wedging just like this letting go bring it back up and doing it all over again it does not have to be one fluid motion if you're just a beginner that motion will come with time water tip I meet a lot of people who wedge like this where they only use the strength of their elbows and their arms and this isn't really beneficial because the entire point of ramps head wedging as far as this one section goes is to really push that clay buddy down and up into a spiral just like this if you're having a hard time doing that or you simply don't have the upper-body strength like some of us do it's always majorly beneficial to not only wedge with your arms like this but to have your body lean into it like this go ahead grab it by the horns right here straighten your arms out a little bit like this bring it back up and just lean into it and as long as your hands are on the side right here your thumbs are on the top and you're pushing downwards with your entire body you're good what's way easier is to simply use your entire body to make sure that weight pushes down on the clay body this is much easier and gives you a little bit more rhythm to the cycle as you go along if you can do all those steps in one motion you've essentially Rams head wedged you grab the top you'll hold your hands on the sides put your thumbs up here push down and in with your thumbs and your hands once you reach the very bottom pull back up with your fingertips and just keep on doing it again and again [Music] if you do this all in one fluid motion what you're honestly doing is you're bringing it up you're pushing your hands just like this kind of like you're twerking a motorcycle handle except for sideways instead of like this and pushing down at the same time that's really all you're doing if you watch my hands in slow-mo you can see that I'm twisting my hands as I push downwards all while keeping my hands on the side of my clay body if you can do those three things at once you essentially know how to wedge water tip after you've gotten a nice little Rams head from your wedging process I like to bang it on four different corners [Music] then I like to just slap asides in [Music] and there you have it one nice big ball of clay that you can now throw with it doesn't have to be perfectly round but it does make the process a lot easier when you throw this on the wheel then it would if you started from a square spiral head wedging is a little bit more advanced in a little bit complicated because it kind of looks like you're wedging on the side of the clay as opposed to on the flat part of the clay like you would be when you're ramsett wedging you remember how I told you have to twist and compress when your Rams head wedging on one side as you push down well you're essentially doing the same exact thing on one side of this clay the only difference is you're doing it with both of your hands and on one side the main benefit of this technique is that you're able to wedge a much larger piece of clay but I'm talking like 15 to 20 pounds it's not like you really need to spiral wedge for just 5 to 10 pounds of clay you can easily Rams head wedge that you see with Rams head wedging you're having to push all of this clay into a center and if you're not super strong or you don't have a lot of upper-body strength you're essentially trying to push all of this clay into itself and you're only going to be able to make a baby Ram this here is about 15 pounds of clay but if you spiral wedge you're really just spiraling this part up here and pushing downwards as you crunch this into a nice spiral and this is where all your clay is really getting wedged yes I know this looks a lot cooler than Rams head wedging but to be honest with you this hasn't really helped me that much in my ceramic art career I've been getting by with Rams head wedging for the good about 5 years of the 6 years that I didn't know how to spiral wedge and the only time I do spiral wedge is when I have an extremely large piece of clay something like 15 to 20 pounds that I simply can't wedge myself but I've practiced Rams head wedging so long that I can essentially wedge 15 pounds with Rams head anyway I just want to remind you that both ways of wedging are valid and acceptable I see too many YouTube videos of people spiral head wedging and people seem to think that they're only for advanced people they're really not some people like Rams head wedging and some people like spiral head wedging but both ways are completely valid and usable after this you can do the same thing we do with the Rams head wedging [Music] and there you go now you have a nice big ball of spiral wedge clay to throw it for extra powder points you can always just tear this apart with your cutting wire right here take this piece and see if there's any air pockets inside of your clay if there are none then good job you did a very good job at wedging yeah this episode is just full of smiley phrases well thank you dirty Potter's for joining me today I really just wanted to show you guys how I wedge if there's any additional comments from other Potter's down below for the benefits of wedging go ahead and post them down below I would love to read your comments and I want to say this one more time spiral head wedging verses Rams head wedging they're both valid ways of wedging no one way is wrong and no one way is right I know plenty of top-tier potters that spiral and I know plenty of top-tier potters that do Rams head both of them are valid ways of wedging it is not something to argue about but thank you dirty Potter's for joining me today if you like see any of my artwork done links are always down below for your beautiful Potter eyes to see and I will see you dirty potters next week for the centering video [Music] I just taught you this first because you better wedge your clay before you start centering we are not animals we are sophisticated partners

Channel: Earth Nation Ceramics

Views: 174,276

Rating: 4.9124537 out of 5

Keywords: Potter, beginners, craft, make, art, ceramica, ceramic art, artist, how to, diy, wheelthrown, throowing clay, clay

Id: X_rDDCNB9C4

Length: 13min 0sec (780 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2019