How to Make A Small Pottery Teapot — Narrated Version

hey and welcome back this week i'll be showing you how i throw and assemble these small teapots there are many steps that go into making these and i want to clarify that by no means am i an expert teapot maker this is just the way i make them and i hope you find some of these insights useful in your own practice early in the morning i begin by throwing a clay bat on my wheel this is a thin skim of clay which i can then attach wooden backs onto you could also equally use a bat system or even specially made backs that fit onto the pins on your wheel head this is just the way i was taught and some things never change once the rough layer of clay has been thrown i blast it with a paint stripper until it's more or less leather hard the reason we want it to be firm is that when we attach the bats we don't want that process to alter the thickness of this bit of clay as if this thin skim of clay would get thinner and thinner each time we attach a bat and squash it down my teapots too would progressively get slightly smaller with each one thrown i then take this mdf bat rub over some water onto one side and tap center it firmly into place the water really helps as it turns to slip that quickly dries which acts sort of like glue once the bat's firmly stuck in place it's time to throw the bodies of these teapots are thrown from 350 grams of clay and their low wide shape is really the reason i use bats otherwise i'll just lift them off without one whenever i'm making pots that are lidded the last part of the piece that i want to distort is the gallery where the lid ends up being placed so throwing them on a bat mitigates any potential tiny warps that might occur as i lift the pot off the wheel once the lump of clay has been centered i use my index finger and my thumb to very gently push into the middle making sure there's always a little bit of water inside as if the clay dries out too much during this process it can stick to your fingers and in doing so you'll likely draw the ball of clay slightly off center which will only exacerbate problems later when you're pulling up the walls and forming the gallery i reach right into the bottom of the pot and on the inside i use the pads of my fingers to push out against the squeezing knuckle on the outside once i've pinched my digits at the bottom i gently pull the clay up with a very even and consistent motion out of all the steps that go into throwing a pot this is definitely the one you don't want to rush above the pot to the left you can see a rubber pointer coming in this is my throwing gauge this particular one was made by my friend and potter darren ellis whom i worked alongside when i apprenticed with lisa hammond i'll show you how i set this later on but essentially the rubber pointer marks my height and diameter so i have a point in space at which to aim for as i'm throwing which is incredibly useful when you're doing repetition making once the rough shape is there and the height i can begin to refine the shape a little bit more these little teapots have a sharp corner around their waist yet i won't fully define that until near the end as throwing such a sharp angle into a vessel can create a weak spot next i start to collar in the rim eventually aiming for an opening that matches a pair of calipers i have set to the right dimensions i think whenever you're making lidded vessels it's always better to leave yourself a little extra clay on the top section of the wall as it's always better to have too much material to work from rather than too little and trying to create a gallery from too little play is always a recipe for disaster once i think the gallery is more or less there i take my pair of calipers and i see if they can fit inside the gallery once i know that measurements correct i can move on to the finishing procedures first i scrape away the excess clay at the base then with a metal kidney i offer it up to the pot and then from the inside out i push the clay out against the metal i'm not pushing the metal into the clay as that's another very easy way to deform the pots as you're working as if you gouge in the metal tool the chances that it'll catch on the clay are much higher i then check with my calipers one last time and then also scrape clean the bat using a rubber kidney this is just to prevent too much slip accumulating on my wear boards later on plus it's not a good idea to keep your throwing bats very wet so that's one thing that can contribute to them warping long term here's how i adjust my throwing gauge after i've thrown the initial shape which is measured with a ruler to make sure that it's totally accurate i then loosen this wing nut adjust the arm so the rubber pointer meets exactly on the outside of the rim then i firmly tighten it once again and as you just saw i can simply flip up the rubber pointer to get out of the way if i need some more space or if i'm lifting the pot off the wheel for instance then i shammy leather the rim smooth slide a wire underneath and carefully lift the pot away i tend to throw all of the teapot bodies and then throw all of the teapot lids and lastly the teapot spouts i do it in this order because initially i take the measurement for the lids from the first throwing teapot then i do the lids and then i do the spouts and i do this bounce last because they need the least time drying the next step is to invert my pair of calipers so that i can measure the outer diameter of the flange on the lids i also always give myself an extra millimeter or so it's better having too much material to work from rather than too little and this way i can trim them to fit perfectly rather than ending up with lids that are potentially slightly too loose and they're rattle each lid is thrown from 100 grams of clay center in such a small amount like this can be rather tricky and i end up using the palm of my hand to do most of the work once scented i open up again like normal what i'm throwing at the moment is the lid but upside down once the inside is being compressed i then divide the rim into two sections like so the corner created by these two parts will become the locating flange for when you place the lid on top of the teapot and the lower section you can see me pressing down with my thumb will become the outside of the lid and the part that you actually see when the two pieces are put together i then take my pair of set calipers and i check the diameter and once i know that's correct i can begin to clean up the lid which again i do with a sharp metal kidney where i scrape away the excess slip neatening up the corners i'll be trimming all of these sections later so they don't have to be perfect i then take my chamois leather just to soften off some of the sharper edges and to compress the clay then i neaten up the outside by scraping away some of the excess clay this also creates a dry area from which i'll be able to easily lift the lid away from i slide a wire underneath and then with dry fingers i carefully pry the lid off and set it aside with the others for both lids and spouts i always throw about four or five extra just on the off chance i ruin a few or for whatever reason one particular spout doesn't match one particular teapot having a few extra of these components means that i don't have to worry about ruining a few and if i do there are some backups what you're seeing now is how i throw spouts off the hump of clay throwing off the hump is the term we use when you throw one singular pot off the top of a large mound of clay for these spouts i make sure the section of clay i'm working on is incredibly well centred that's essentially all i'm doing is colouring it into a finer and finer point and in doing so you exaggerate any of the inconsistencies that might be in the clay so before throwing these i spend a long time spiral wedging the big mound of clay once the rough shape is there i scrape away the outside slip i then create a groove through which i'll slide my wire and then carefully lift off the spout and place it to one side these are tricky things to make in all honesty it's mostly fingertip throwing and out of all of the processes that go into making a teapot it's likely the one i look forward to least here you can see how i use the shape of the metal kidney to push into the soft clay sort of like a mold that i push into the clay i then cut away the groove and then using a wire i carefully slide it through these are the last of the throne components needed for the teapots the next step is to control how they dry overnight as by the following morning ideally i want all of the components to be the right dryness so that i can immediately assemble them without having to worry about one part being too dry or too soft which let me tell you is much easier said than done so sometimes such as in this video i had lots of bowls to also trim so i flipped my lids over so the undersides could dry properly and then i wrapped all my spouts up in plastic so they wouldn't dry out too much often in a busy studio you are juggling around a few jobs creating a few different runs of pots and various other tasks so inevitably some pieces go on hold for a while but for teapots it could be quite a good opportunity because you can really take your time and make sure that all the components are really really in the best condition for assembling and attaching to one another rather than rushing in just hoping for the best but like anything this is sort of a skill in itself knowing when pots are best to be worked on when they're the exact right firmness when it's best to attach the handle when it's best to trim and so on and this is one thing i'm continually asked about online you know what kind of status you're clay in when do you attach the spouts and sadly mostly it just comes down to experience in practice there are no set rules there's no one particular way of doing things every studio is different the clay will dry out at different rates in every different studio so it just takes time and practice to learn what's best in your space so now finally all my components are ready to go they're all nicely just on the slightly firmer side of leather hard so let's begin assembling the first step is to get the lid and body fitting perfectly and i do this by first centering the lid onto the wheel and attaching it down with three small lumps of clay to keep it firmly in place then i can start to remove a tiny skim of clay from the locating flange once i've removed a little bit i take the teapot body and i offer it up to the lid just to make sure that it fits once i know that the teapot body and lid fit i can start to trim the rest of the lid to remove some of the weight on these lids i do trim this inside section this can be slightly irritating as the clay that comes off simply collects back on your tool but i prefer doing this refining at the trimming stage rather than the throwing stage as i believe i can be a lot more accurate and i can get away with going thinner i should note you'll probably be hearing me blow a lot in this video and this is something i do simply to try and dislodge some of the bits of clay that end up getting stuck to the piece i'm trimming the next step is to trim the teapot first i rub some water over the base which i then use to stick the teapot firmly to the metal wheel head the friction in combination with the water creates a slip and again that acts as a sort of glue which holds the pot in place then i also use a rubber kidney just to squash down a few millimeters worth of clay onto the wheel which creates another seal once firmly stuck i can begin to trim here i'm using a sharp tungsten carbide looped trimming tool and i use this to trim away an outer layer of clay to neaten up the form and to reduce the weight of the overall vessel all of the clay that's removed during this process i can recycle there's really very little waste when making pottery that's one of the wonderful things about the craft once i've finished trimming this section of the pot i take a smaller trimming tool and i just gently trim away a portion of the gallery just to make that edge a bit finer i then use the pads of my fingers to smooth over any of those sharper edges just to soften them a touch then i place the lid into the teapot which i then mark with a pair of calipers and a needle at a specific diameter just to make sure that all my lids are exactly the same then i can start trimming and you'll notice two things the first is that my left hand is constantly applying downward pressure on the lid this stops it from moving slightly as i'm trimming and it also stops it from jumping up which i can do the other thing to notice is that both of my hands are constantly touching one another as i'm trimming this helps to keep my hands very steady when trimming which is what they need to be as all it takes is one wrong movement to accidentally gouge away more than you wanted next i'll start to trim the top of the lid here i'm doing a number of things first i'm removing the wiring off marks that are left over from when i wired off the lid from the wheel i also trim a slightly concave surface so that the glazes can pull nicely on the lid and perhaps most importantly i pierce in this small hole which is very useful as it pulls in air as you're pouring out the tea which prevents it from glugging which means it'll pour better too and lastly i just go over this area with the edge of a sharp metal kidney not to burnish it completely smooth more so just to remove any prominent turning marks there could be then i flip the lid over as i still need to do some cleaning up on this underside especially the outer diameter where a little bit of clay can sometimes get folded over which you see me removing now and also the exit wound from where i pierce the hole that needs to be cleaned up too which i do with just a tiny turning tool and then the edge of the hole piercer itself these little details might seem inconsequential but i think these are the really important small subtle finishing touches that make all the difference next i'll begin to trim the underside of the teapot and this i'll do in two stages this first round i do when the teapot's still attached to the wheel like this but in a moment i'll flip it upside down and finish it properly to remove the firmly stuck teapot from the wheel i just slide in a metal knife underneath then making sure the wheel head is clean i can place the lid back down and the teapot on top of that and tap center the lid back into place and once again firmly secure it with three little balls of clay when i push these down i'm not pushing the clay firmly against the lid rather i'm pushing the clay firmly downward onto the metal and i let what gently squashes against the lid either clay that holds it in place occasionally i'll use a bottle cap like this which i center and then i push down through this distributes the weight of my fingers pushing down sort of like when you lie down on thin ice to stop it collapsing as the bases of these are quite thin if i were to firmly push in one small spot there's a chance i could create an unwelcome indent in the clay so using this simple bottle cap helps to prevent that once the lower half of the walls have been trimmed i can begin to trim the base first i trim a beveled edge onto this bottom corner this removes what would otherwise be a sharp corner of clay from the base of the teapot which would inevitably be chipped as the vessel is placed on the table into cupboards and so on and finally once again using a sharp metal kidney i give the clay a little bit of a burnish and lastly i take my maker's mark which i press into the clay this is my signature essentially it's what identifies this specific pot as being made by me i carved this stamp by hand from a small block of porcelain clay it was then certified in the kilns of maize hill pottery head first down in a lump of wadding to protect the delicate incised f that's all it is a little runic mark and that now means the teapot and lid are finished which means it's time to attach the spout and then pull the handle afterwards i have some extra tools on this board that i move over onto my wheel and then i can begin the careful procedure of slicing off the spout holding the teapot and attaching the two parts together which again is a process that's better not be rushed i go and fetch one of my leather hard spouts and then using a very sharp fine wire i slice it off at a specific angle the angle at which i cut changes depending on the shape of the teapot then i take a sharp knife and i begin to cut away some of the insides of the spout making it thinner personally i prefer to remove the excess clay at this stage with a knife rather than spend unnecessarily long throwing them very delicately and incredibly thin this is another step where the firmness of your clay is very important as if you try to slice it away when it's too soft the clay will simply just stick to the blade and it becomes a really impossible task then i use a diddler which is the technical term for a sponge on a stick also i've been told i dip this in water and then wring it out fully and then i insert it into the spout and twist it around like this this makes the interior walls completely smooth all the way around and removes any knife marks there might be and then i use a fingertip just to smooth off the clay one more time i then roughly place the spout onto the teapot then score all around it with the sharp potter's needle which creates the area where i'll be piercing the holes which is the next step i take a slightly larger hole piercer than before carefully one by one pierce a series of small holes i do this entirely by eye and for this size of teapot i find that four in the middle followed by three either side seems to do the job very well for all the exit wounds for these holes i won't clean them up until the pot is completely bone dry and i have a coarse sponge on a stick which i simply insert into the teapot and rub the backs of the holes which removes any excess burrs of clay i then use a knife on the front to do the same thing more or less just to clean off the face then i use the back end of my potter's needle just to round off the holes to neaten them up and to remove any burs of clay that might be inside them too ideally i want them to be as smooth as possible as when i'm glazing these any burr of clay is potentially something glaze can snag on which could then lead to creating a blockage i then take my leather hard spout and for a moment i just dip the base of it in water this causes the clay to soften and makes it much easier to blend and join onto the teapot in a moment at first i just simply score all the way around the holes these help create a very strong join between the teapot body and the spout but i don't worry about putting any slip on as the base of the spout is already wet enough i carefully position it apply a little pressure and then spend a moment or two just doing a few checks i need to make sure that the spout is springing from the teapot at the correct angle and also i need to make sure that it's perfectly lined up with the holes inside once i'm happy then i can begin to blend in the clay of the spout into the teapot body initially i just use my finger and my thumb to smooth the clay in which i try to do in a very natural way i want the spout to look as if it's simply grown out of the teapot vessel rather than looking like it's just been stuck on so i take my time with this making sure that it looks right once i'm happy with that rough finish i move on to using a diddler just to smooth it all off this creates a join that's almost seamless the only problem is that when you sponge clay like this it reveals all the little specks of sand that the clay contains that's only if you are using a grogged clay this means that after i'm done sponging i have to spend some time burnishing with my fingertips like you see here this process pushes all the little specks of sand back into the clay body and makes it much smoother and that's it for the teapot and the spout next it's time to pull the handle which apart from throwing the lid is likely the second fastest part of this process first i begin with a large block of clay which i pull using lots of water into a longer strap handle shape with every pull i grip firmly at the top and pull all the way down to the bottom the entire time making sure that i never release pressure before my hand is well past the end of the clay and if i ever feel that my hand is dry or the clay is dry i make sure that i use some more water immediately i then take the long length of clay and lay it out one by one like this cutting off small blanks of clay each one of these rough shapes will then be attached to the teapot and pulled again so it doesn't matter at the moment that i'm placing them practically one on top of the other or touching as these are only going to be refined further once they're finally attached to the teapots and pulled in the warmer months i'll stack up these little blanks of clay so they don't dry out too much as i like to attach them to the teapots when they're very soft the firmer they get the more difficult they are to blend nicely into the teapot and you'll also have a more difficult time pulling them you might have to work with a more delicate hand as you work with softer clay but if you can control it it'll reward you as your handles will look far fresher and you'll also have a much easier time pulling them so to attach them i score a little part on the teapot and then dab that area with a touch of water then i take one of the handle blanks carefully hold it in one hand while i tap out the end on the other creating a flare this flare of clay provides material which i'll easily be able to blend into the teapot's body creating a strong join i take the blank in one hand and i push it onto the scored area with one hand inside the teapot to brace it too once the handle blank has been roughly joined i pick up the teapot and i blend in that flare of clay just with my finger and thumb once totally smoothed all the way around i use a very slightly wetted finger just to clean up any of the marks that are left from joining the handle this is another moment where it's better to spend more time carefully completing this task as if you try to rush this and try to pull the handle too soon it's very easy just to simply rip the whole handle away from the teapot if it hasn't been secured firmly enough once well attached i can begin pulling this can be a little trickier to do on a form that already has a spout protruding as you need to be careful about where you position your hands but essentially all i'm doing is with one wetted hand i grasp near the top where it meets the pot i clasp and grip my hand together and i pull down through the length of clay gradually thinning it out pull by pull once the length of clay is more or less there i switch to using the side of my thumb to the tip of my thumb and in doing so i feel as if i can pinch away more of the clay at the top removing some of the mass that accumulates from where you join it in creating a handle that's overall a bit thinner this is exceedingly delicate work and i'm sure anyone who's ever tried pulling handles knows exactly what i'm talking about once the length of the handle is there i push in towards the top of the handle here and then loop it back down i attach it near the mid point of the teapot just where the sharp edges and i cut off the excess piece just by pinching it between my finger and thumb i then spend some time not only making sure that the angle at which the handle springs away from the teapot is correct but also blending in the bottom joint and making sure it's nice and tidy these finely pulled handles very soft at this point so i try to minimize just how long i work on them if there are any notable parts that need to be cleaned up i'll wait until the handles have dried out to leather hard as often attempting to fix them when they're soft like this will just result in making them worse that's it it's more or less finished although there's still one last step to do the next day i haven't fired any of these yet but i'll have to make a video in the future to show you what they look like after they've been reduction fired and coated in glaze overnight i place them upside down like this just so the freshly pulled handles don't happen to sag downward which they sometimes can by the following morning the handles will be the same consistency as everything else and i should also mention that's why i wrapped them in plastic too otherwise they'd dry out far too quickly and most likely both the handle and the spout would crack as they dry unevenly the following morning there's one last little thing to do throughout the entire process of attaching the spout and pulling the handle there's a very good chance that the base of the teapot or the rim here that i'm burnishing gets marked slightly or perhaps they pick up some tiny burrs of clay so the final thing i do is just clean up both the base and the rim with my metal kidney it only takes about a minute or so per teapot but it's well worth it well for a detailed obsessed potter like myself it is anyway i've always been so interested with the finish of pots especially on the bases and the parts that you wouldn't normally think about the areas that might end up being forgotten anyhow that's all for this week thanks so much for watching if you've made it all the way through i know it was a really long one see you next time [Applause]

Channel: Florian Gadsby

Views: 116,294

Rating: 4.9496503 out of 5

Keywords: pottery, ceramics, how to turn pottery, how to trim pottery, Florian Gadsby, floriangadsby, how to make pottery, trimming pottery, turning pottery, Asmr pottery, handmade pottery, stoneware pottery, pottery for beginners, Asmr, handmade ceramics, pottery wheel, how to make teapots, pottery teapots, ceramic teapots, how to make clay teapots, clay, teapots, teapot, making teapots, stoneware teapot, how to make a teapot, how to throw a teapot, handmade teapot, asmr pottery, handmade

Id: ytSP4QIka88

Length: 24min 5sec (1445 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021