Hand building a bellied, square foot mug

hello this is a round off from Curly's clay creations a few days ago I posted a few pictures of this mug that I made I hand-built this no wheel was involved many people asked if I use the wheel afterwards no it's all started with the slab so I'm gonna walk you through the steps there are a few steps I'm gonna try to rush through this so it's not an hour-long video but this is what I'll be making today and so let me put that on the side so I don't knock it over so like I've said in my previous videos everyone does things differently I'm just here to give you some of the ideas that I use and hopefully you can incorporate them and use them in your clay building so let's get started I'm going to be using this ruler and let's see so I measure a good comfortable 11 inches across would be about there and I give myself some space so they can have the lip of the mug so I don't want to start rolling too close to the edge so instead of 11 inches I'll go probably in a couple inches to 14 inch 13 inches it would be comfortable for me so about there and since I know how wide or how my height of my mugs they're going to be actually five and a half five and a quarter inches tall so just so that I know how to measure this I'll put my rolling pin right there I'll grab my other ruler just sort of just eye it out because I don't want my rolling pin to move too much as I roll it so I'll start rolling I'd rather do it like this then use the handles okay so that's gonna be the body of the mug now I also like to put pattern on the bottom of my mug and as you can see over here I had left a spot for my signature many times I used to do the bottom down I'm like where am I gonna sign them you know so I had to sort of come up with a way to leave a space for my signature so what I did is I picked up some folder dividers and clear which I like to use these as templates because I can see where the pattern is when I place it down so I got this and I cut up little if you want to call them nametags out of them and I labeled them name because they're easy to disappear since they're clear so I placed these on the clay approximately how much space I need for a bottom so let's see I'll put them over here and then once the other place make sure I give enough room for my lip of the mug here and I'll roll just ten right over it just like that and I'm gonna use a cookie cutter to cut those out I'm gonna make it larger than what I assume the bottom is going to be and I'll cut that later to fit the bottom but I want to prepare these and get them out of the way so I can build the mug so now I have the bottoms and I can remove this nametag and I'll have the perfect spot for a signature I'm going to leave an inch lip so the good thing about this ruler has all these lines that help you measure straight so this line right here would be the 1 inch I'm going to put that on my design on my texture at the bottom I'm gonna put there the same thing to the opposite side would help a lot better if my ruler was clean but I could still see I'm gonna cut it so I'm going to do the 12 inches I'll measure the 12 inches and thankfully with all these lines it's easy to measure on this side that does not look straight now the height of the mug since the whole slab is ten and a half I know I cut down at five and a quarter so I'll make my mark there there now before I start building them I'm going to bubble the edges so that I get a clean seam also I had some people asked me where is the seam on your mug so I do have a seam so the majority of it is seamless except for that one right there it does show barely depending on how careful you connect the seams but there is a seam and I use this tool to cut my bubbled edges and for videos sake I'm just going to be making one mug so we'll take this slab I'm gonna go ahead and score the ends and for those who want to know this one it's a great tool good scoring for a large area apply some slipped I'm carefully attached I'm very gentle with my clay a lot of people say they can't keep the pattern on the mug clean but I don't know I never really had much of a problem I'm very gentle when I work with it so what I usually do as I dismissed it with a tiny bit of water just so I can get a clean Glide when I use my rubber red and I hold the outside and I smooth the inside walls and then I do I this out you can measure it if you aren't comfortable with doing it but I go ahead and grab a ruler and I sort of Center it and I make tiny marks at the bottom of the mug and then I cross it Center it again and make the little marks again so now I have the 12 to 6 to 9 and the 3 and now I want to bring in the bottom of the mug as you can see over here so I made this little tool also out of my folder dividers with triangles so I cut different size triangles depending on how far you want the mug to fold in so if you wanted to fold in a lot and have a smaller gap in the centre you would do the one and I would do one and a half and you can make these a you know whatever size you'd like or you can even just cut them out without using a template but typically that's what I do but for the sake of the video I'm going to be using the template to make things easier so now that I've marked four corners and to make my life easier I'm going to go ahead and I out the center point of these arrows these triangles so what I'm gonna do I'm gonna use the one-inch so what you do is the dot that I just put in the center with the line across is going to be right at the rim of the cup and the point is going to meet the point that I made on the mug so it'll be like that I don't want to lift up my mug I'm just I'm assuming you can tell what I mean I don't wanna lift up the mug because I don't want to ruins the roundness but I go ahead and do that and what I do is a bevel cut this corner out and you're gonna bevel outward so I'm gonna try to do this backwards to show you but instead of beveling inward towards the triangle your bevel cutting outward so it'll be like that and you're gonna do that on both sides you're gonna bubble cut out and down to cut out the triangle so I'm gonna go ahead and do that you that done get my scoring tool and I score the little beveled edges I'll play some slip and I start bringing them together to meet and [Music] and slowly and gently bring the seams together as you can see they fit perfectly together and form a square on the top and now you have this shape since these seams I want to reinforce these seams and to fill them in in the inside like I did here to give me a cleaner inside you can barely see those corner seams so in order to do that it's easier to do it now than later because if you wait till later you're gonna have to actually stuff your hand and the mug with your fingers in it can get messy and ruin the shape of your mug so I'm going to just place that away for a minute and I'll get some excess clay that I have from that same clay body now I'm gonna do this I'm gonna roll a super thin snake coil to sort of place in the corners of the bottom of the mug so that I can smooth them in once I flip it over so it's easier to just place them right there since it's close to the top so that's what I'm about to do what's that dear I'm gonna go ahead and attach my bottom before I flip it so go ahead and extra score the bottle since it's a little bit slanted I score it enough where it's flat and it'll fit perfectly on the bottom so as you can see I'm sort of taking off that little curve right there so it's it's flat and they trace it so I can score it correctly he's my thinner scoring tool for this one and I will cut that to fit once it's a little firmer so I'm just gonna keep that there for support flip them up and now to see the inside you can see how I put those coils in the corners I'm going to go ahead and clean those out there's extra slip on the edges over there so I like to clean that out also I use this it's called this brushes crafters choice our 9-1-1 3 it's a lifesaver it's a hard well not hard for a firm bristle brush and it's thick enough for me to sort of get the edges in the inside of the mug smooth and it's tough enough to actually do the job so I just sprayed a little bit of water in there and I get the tool and I'm just smoothing off the bottom where some of the slip is still in now I use this tool with the curved end and I said just brush up on those coils until they're as flat as I want them to be so now what I do here you could wait I'm just doing it all in one step for the sake of video I'm gonna go ahead and just hold my fingers on the corner while I do that so I'm going to hold it like this to keep it in place as I smooth out the coil inside doesn't have to be perfect you can always go back and fix it with a sponge or this brush this paintbrush that I'm telling you about okay that's good for now I'll go in and fix that later okay since the body of the mug still just stands up tall log that's it like a cylinder I want to go ahead and miss the inside walls just slightly because I'm gonna start belying it out and the water allows my fingers to glide and sort of stick to the inside of the clay so to belly it out even I use my hands I used a natural curve of my hand on the outside and then I bring my fingers and I sort of constantly place my hand in the same position on the outside of the mug as I'm belying it out with my fingers so I want to start here and you what you have to watch out for the scene once you get to the seam hopefully you've waited and let it harden up a little bit before you do this so be careful at the seam and you'll see how I do that when I get to it so I'm just carving the outside from the inside and I'm following this pattern of my palm so you get that roundness there so it's ready coming to life and I do that throughout the glove to get an even round shape to it okay so now at the seam I push it out but I make sure I put a little bit more pressure at the seam so it doesn't bust and then I just keep going now you got a rounded bottom so depending on how far you want it to come out just go over it do it in stages don't force out a big belly all at once I'd say go slowly so that you don't bust through it and you don't want to affect the outside pattern too much from stretching it so I think that's good right there I like that shape so I'm going to keep that like that and now for the lip I'm going to give it a curved drinking lip same way I did with this one so it's not standing straight up it actually comes out a little bit so with this one we're going to get a sponge I'll wet it a little and for the rim same thing I use my hand and I place it right below the lip so I'm going to use that as a guide so as I'm getting a sponge I'm gonna be pushing outwards and downwards at the same time to sort of roll around my finger as I turn the mug around so let me show you so I'll go like this and you see how I'm bringing it in and out make sure you try to keep your finger at the same spot on the outside of the mug to get an even lip it was the seam just be careful around there I sort of overlooked it but just watch out for it I just smooth it off the edge I can always go back and do that as it dries up a little bit more but now you got the body in the lip pretty much good put this aside now and I'm gonna make the handle for it with a little curve on the bottom of this handle it doesn't always work for me because my clay tends to dry up too quick and it starts cracking so make sure if you really want that to keep your clay really moist and hopefully it works during the video so now that I have that sheet red sticker on the top Center on the bottom I'm just gonna leave it I'm gonna get the same rolling pin and just slightly roll over the coil before it starts to hurt and I'm going to go ahead and give it the fake shape probably a lot to roll on the bottom so I want to make sure that stays what and as I'm doing it I'm sort of compressing the clay on the outside to give it that curl slowly so I don't get any cracks hopefully I don't get any cracks or maybe I'll even keep it a large coil like that now at the top part of the handle I bevel this out so I wanna enough space so that it holds enough of the mug I don't want to give it to shore of a spot to connect at two so I need the support so I'll bevel it out like this so I'll have all that spot right there I really should wait for this mug to dry as you some of you know I'm very impatient and I'll use the excuse that it's on video and that's why I'm rushing through this but there is magical video I could always pause it and come back to it but I'm just gonna go ahead and I this out see if it's right size I like that round part on the bottom I don't know if I want to tighten it I'd rather it not crack on me so I put it right below the lip a little touch there so where the seam is you can place the handle anywhere you want I don't want to put it on the scene because it's too weak right now so I don't want it to be too obvious so I'm gonna go ahead and put it on this edge you can put it wherever you want okay I'll hold it from the inside and lightly put pressure to bind them it looks good now for the bottom I'm not gonna do that but what I do is once it's a la belt leather hard I come back and I trim right outside of the bottom of the mug not directly straight to it so I just trimmed the edges off squared and what I do is I bring the edges up and pinch them up against the mug you can do that with this if you want or you can make it square or you can just leave it whole like this and make it look like it's on a coaster that's up to you but so that's what I'm gonna do once it's dry and this is what it would look like at the bottom once you do that so what I did is I cut the square a little bit larger than the bottom so it was about maybe a quarter of an inch or so and I went with my finger and just sort of push the clay in and up towards the mug and that gives it a little bit more of a support also to hold the bottom to the mug and clean out the inside sponged out rim and this is just about bone dry so it'll be going in the kiln in the next few days so hopefully you've enjoyed that tutorial and I can't wait to see what you guys all come up with and tag me in your post I'd love to see them and if you love the video please share it there you go it was my pleasure

Channel: Curly’s Clay Creations

Views: 103,648

Rating: 4.9170909 out of 5

Keywords: ceramics, clay, pottery, handmade, hand built, tutorial, how to, demonstration, iphone 4k video, iphone, coffee, mug, kitchen, food, slab built

Id: g70mEl-z7us

Length: 32min 37sec (1957 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 20 2018