Blue Plate Special - Plate Throwing Tutorial

hmm Blue Plate special grab yourself a couple of balls of clay and better got three to five pounds why three to five pounds because it really all depends on how big you want your plate and be how thick you want your plate and whether or not you want a foot ring experiment figure out what style is best for you but no matter what you want to get it nice and centered when you get it centered it's about bringing it down this first plate I'm only going to bring it out to about eight inches but I'm going to take my hand overtop and I'm real starting from the center and I'm rollin over rollin over getting it even getting it you want to roll it out so it's stays Center once we get it's as far as we need I push down and now it's about pushing down and pulling towards you slowly you don't want to do it in jerky movements you want to keep yourself centered you can always hold your rim of the wall of your clay to check to keep it centered I will check the bottom but sometimes I'm snoozing I need to open this up a little more once again I'm gonna push down in the center for a bit grab a little bit and I am using my fingers to kind of pinch the top of that and pull while I'm also using the sponge to make sure everything rolls over see the little pinch and the sponge is kind of helping it roll over on itself so that once I it's not going up really high and getting out of hand it's rolling over and it will marry nicely into the ring that's on the outside if I need to I will check again you know keep it all going keep this in mind about three quarters of an inch for a plate if you want a foot bring you know more than half because when you go to wire this off the wire will kind of bunch up and cut off more in the center than it is on the ends so if you have a thin plate you could just end up creating you know giant air keep that in mind go for a little thicker than you need at first alright once we get it out to as wide as we need which for this is about 8 inches because we're gonna have a tall thick ring press I'm going from the outside and I am pushing down so if I have maybe a 3/4 of an inch bottom I can compress that down and maybe a half an inch it's it'll be a thick strong bottom hopefully we won't get s cracks notice I don't leave water in there you really don't want to leave water in there to weaken your pot but I'll go in I will fiddle and fiddle in federal until I feel that I have a nice smooth bottom and a wonderfully strong bottom now let's go and pull this baby up because I I'm gonna go a little tall because it's going to be a stop but the kind of room that you can pass around that your fingers aren't sitting in the plate known as spaghetti plate so I pull it up do two lovely pulls notice I'm keeping my rim thick thick rim means you will have a nice plate because once you push it over it will thin out I'm right now metal rib I am getting rid of excess water sludgy stuff and I'm doing a little compression I want to have a strong wall so when I push it over it has strength and it will do what I need to do once I get that going I'm gonna come in here get my Lauren always getting that little rib I am now creating a nice curve where the floor and the wall meets it's not about pushing it out it's just getting that curve in there you want to just it's a subtle thing everything about throwing is settled once I come in here I now about a half inch above where the floor in the wall meets beyond the little curb and I am slowly pushing it over pivoting so holding the bottom kind of exactly where it is and it's really the top that is slowly tilting pushing it over see how that's coming down it's maybe about two inches I want to say getting my finger underneath to support just letting it just sit there and make a nice surface flat surface a nice surface I will go in and just make sure that that's a nice crisp curve there this is turning into a really nice plate all right I will smooth out my myface plates I will you know go over my rim you don't want your room so flat down that it falls over keep that mind and also remember that when it dries it'll start to pull up so you you know there's always finding that nice balance and I will tend to the rim you could always do these things when it's leather hard sometimes it's best not to touch keep that in mind once we get to the point when we're wiring it off remember you want to hold your wire tight and you want to put it you'll know as I put it between my two thumbs and I push my thumbs down on to my bat will must be spinning but not too fast and usually by the time you get halfway through you will feel that release keep pushing down and pull the wire towards you and hopefully I'll go as well wait yeah on to the next one I've already upped down the whole nine yards we're just the whole thing with this is I'm not gonna show you how to you know going up and down but we bring it out again this one's gonna be more Mentalist minimalist style so once I've got my clay out as far as I need I will yes compress I'm always going to show you the compressing because compressing when something is wide is really important whether it's a bowl or a plate or mug you know one thing about doing plates and getting really used to compressing your bottom is you will get really used to compressing the bottoms of all your pots helps to get rid of s cracks yeah I'm using a little bit of a round rib to kind of get at it that's one way to get something really nice and compressed this one I've gone out over ten inches and now I'm just coming in here with my thumb cleaned them and I am just literally pushing this on the back underneath and look how I've risen it up just a little bit that's it that's all I have to do a little bit of a pull to make it nice and just making sure that my rim doesn't get too crazy to you there's that one little bit okay I'm gonna keep going I'm gonna set the curved where the floor and the wall meets this is also bringing out a little more and boom look it's done seriously it's quicker it's easier you know this one's still because it's got a nice little curve will hold some saucy things I'm just setting the shape of my rim I like it to go on an angle it just seems nice this is not the plate you're gonna pick up and pass this on because there's nothing to hold on to but this is a really lovely dinner plate sure I'll serve some stuff in it too but look at that I'm just setting smoothing and then once again pushing down pulling tight having the wheel turn and there is plate number two kind of classic very clean very simple you want to make life easier check this out yeah I just put slab on there a nice thick big slab all right a little water down on the bad head put your slab I don't have a slab roller so I threw this one out and then I took my book rolling pin and I went in many different directions it's probably a little less than an inch put it on cut it down 10 inches little probably right where the bat pins are it's one way to gauge 2 inches on my wheel and then I am just sitting here going through a little compression a little shaping much like the last plate I just go and pop that off a little so that I can just grab a little bit of the clay on the side and just lift it up and create a little bit of a wall nothing much it's not dramatic not crazy once I get that settled and not so shimmy-shimmy I come in with my rib I'm gonna create that curve where the wall and the floor meets also I'm gonna of course out of this ya know I'm just gonna shake that little curve that's it and then I can just shape my room I'm not even gonna wire this off because I didn't throw it on there it's it's a slab it'll pop off whether hard you can also do the first plate I showed you you just need to make a wider circle when you start higher walls and then just keep going alright and the last play what can I possibly showing you now I'm gonna throw this square that's what I'm gonna show you it's gonna be amazing okay pound up centered brought it all down compressing the crap out of it so the usual it's a plate next thing I'm gonna want to do after that once I get all the goofiness off that's the goofiness I'm gonna bring my wall up nice simple pole keeping it very cylinder but make sure you keep your you know the rim at the top of the rim thick because it's a plate I'm gonna come in here I'm gonna use the bath pins my fingers on it the other one and I'm gonna just make a little mark then I'm gonna eye straight ahead and then down towards me I have now marked this into four sections okay now though just a bit earth and then I'm going to move it to right after right before my marks leaving a little attached my pin tool is angled down and I'm just going all the way over stopping right before and then stabbing it right after and then moving it I wanted I'm I'm moving this along you don't want your your wheel going that'd be crazy now I'm adding some slippy goodness - right before where I cut because I'm gonna move my walls I'm gonna pick it up a little and move it I mean I have pretty clean hands and I move my wall and then I'm pressing down and I'm getting rid of the lime because you don't want to see the groove a little bit of compression a little bit of just pushing it down and they're just smashing it over and you want to make sure that your walls are connected once you've got the inside all done and I'll pretty it all nice and come around I'm just taking my pin tool and I'm scraping along the bottom of my bat head so I'm releasing the clay underneath cuz then I'm gonna come and I'm going to angling with my pin tool and cut through and then get rid of that extra lump of clay there because you don't mean it go through do all four sides and then I'm gonna come in with either a wooden knife or one of my ribs plastic wooden and hand for support on the inside and go through and make it a little nicer compress get rid of the ridges make sure that my wall is attached to the bottom of my plate again do all four doesn't have to be perfect because it might be it's gonna be easier to clean up when it's in the weather heart state clean up and make a little nicer attention to the rim and this is why we wanted a thicker wall cuz now I'm gonna throw it and bring my wall down so it's a nice room plate and not a bowl takes a little patience don't go too fast because you've got clay in different places and you know just a little bit of fighting but not clean off re-establish the curve on the inside compress the bottom a little yeah make it all nice this is a somewhat rounded square plate what I like to do is I'm going to come in and stretch that clay and really bring out this corner so it's a little bit more square a little bit more defined I will do that with all four notice I'm coming through I'm not just doing the corner bits I am stretching from all the way you know almost from one side to the next move all that clay that that's why it helps to have a nice stick wall there you go look at that looking pretty sweet so there you have it four different plates four different ways I hope this helps you should be a little bit more creative to make some plates set a full table start thinking about what your dinner plate look like what your salad plate look like do you need small little plates what can be round what can be squared what can have a crazy wide rim what maybe is more minimalist it's up to you [Music]

Channel: Clay with Sally Anne Stahl

Views: 26,734

Rating: 4.8709679 out of 5

Keywords: Sally Anne Stahl, throwing plates, how do I throw a plate, pottery throwing demo, Ceramic demo, plate demo, plate tutorial, square plate, clay shaper gallery

Id: ZdJDHL2xV6I

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Thu May 21 2020