How To Throw A Foot On A Bowl Or Vase - Tutorial

hey everybody welcome back today we're going to talk about feet and not the ones at the end of your legs the ones on the bottom of your pots let's go [Music] alright guys here we are and as I just said we're going to talk about the foot on the bottom of your pot and specifically we're going to talk about how I make the foot like this on the bottom of either a bowl or a base you can see the foot that's on the bottom of that vase there or even a larger bowl say like this platter bowl I've got a foot on the bottom of it that I made and I do that with this ramp right here this is pretty much one of the only tools I use while I'm throwing pots and not that I'm against anybody using a specialized tool if you have a tool that's cut in that shape that you just stick in there and make that foot I don't care I'm not a purist in the sense that the fact that the way I do it is the only right way to do it and everything else is wrong if you get the look that you want and it's a good-looking pot when you're done hey good for you and that that's awesome whether you want to trim the bowl or whether you want to throw that foot on the bowl while you're making the bowl same thing I'm not against the trim foot on a bowl or pot I think they look great for me I just think if I can make that foot on there without having to actually put this back on the wheel and trim it then I've saved myself some time and it shows good craftsmanship it shows good craftsmanship as well that I can actually make that foot on there without actually having to trim it that's just my opinion I'm not saying this is the right or the wrong way to do it you do what you feel is the right way to make your pot so I'm just going to show you specifically how I use this tool to make that foot on the bottom of the bowl I've had lots of people ask me either in person or on videos in the comments section how I make that foot so I'm going to try really hard in this video to get the camera in there to really show you how I do that and I'll really dig in there and try to get different angles so that you can see how I do that foot on the bottom of the bowls all right now it's time to get the clay ready and make the pots and show you how that's done alright so I think the first thing that I'm gonna do is probably throw three or four maybe even five pieces and get them all to the point where I would be putting the foot on them and then I'm gonna take them off the wheel on the back set those aside and then we'll come back and that will that way I can talk through like like said four or five in a row different pieces and I can film them from different angles and just talk through how I would make that book on those so first I'm gonna throw three of these two-pound bowls and then I've got some one-pound clay balls as well so I'll probably make five five or six pieces maybe even and set those aside when I would get ready to make that foot and then we'll come back I'll probably film this all and just speed it up so you can watch all that and fast motion and then we'll come back and I'll explain how I make that foot when we get to that point on all all these pieces [Music] you [Music] all right guys here we are back throwing this and I thought I would leave this one first bring you guys back in the middle of this piece and then show you how I make the put on this okay I'll just make a small base or something like that out of this one and one of the one of the things that's important the reason I brought you back now to talk to you about is I was thinking as I was making all the other ones it's actually pretty difficult to make a pot halfway through and then stop and take it off the wheel my brain just didn't know what to do but one of the things that that helps with this is if you I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and they were asking how I made that foot one of the things that prompted me about this video and I told her that you know a lot of times when you're pulling like I do with my fingertip no matter what you used to pull with you have that little bit of clay that's left around the bottom of the piece as you're pulling with your finger and most of the time most people would probably take a tool and cut all that clay off and then shape the piece and then try to figure out how to make the foot I told her I said one of the ways that I make that foot I was making some flatter balls one of the ways I make that foot is I leave that clay there and then I just turned that clay into the foot of the bowl instead of cutting it off and then you're not wasting you know you're not wasting that clay number one not that it's really wasted but you're actually not trying to cut into the bowl after you've cut away that extra clay you just turn that clay into the foot and then throw the rest of the bowl and she was like I always wondered how you did that and I was like okay yeah I've had several people ask that so I thought would make a video about it today so you can see I'll zoom in here and then we'll continue the conversation okay now that you guys are in closer I'll try not to talk too loud because the microphone is a lot closer now did you guys can see that extra clay that's left there around the bottom from where I stuck my finger in to pull up that shake I'm actually just gonna take that clay sometimes on vases I will cut that away and then make another one so I'll show you both ways so I know I'm just contradicting what I just said a lot of times I don't cut that clay away sometimes on a vase I will cut that clay away because I want the bottom to beat the base of the vase to be smaller than what it is here but all for this piece of sake I'll leave all that clay there and I'm gonna turn that into a foot and then I'll take one of those previous ones I made I'll cut that clay off and then show you how I would make the foot if I cut that clay off but this one if I wanted to take that clay and just turn it into a foot and a of course get it wet I hold this hand on the other side of the pot and I kind of hold my thumb here and my fin and my index finger there and those kind of act as I'm pushing in with my tool here those kind of act to round that foot around as I'm making it sharp and jagged with my tool those fingers kind of help round that foot as I'm doing that so I'm gonna hold those fingers on the on the left hand side of the pot take my right hand with this with this tool I'm just gonna push up underneath the bottom and you can already see that clay that's coming off its went onto my finger instead of continuing on around and then I'm gonna just keep pushing underneath and I just kind of hold this at an angle like this and I'm pushing up underneath that foot and then I kind of wiggle it back and forth a little bit to kind of round that but I want to dig underneath and then and then my index finger my thumb help round the top side of that off and then if I wanted to make that more pronounced then as I go to shape the belly of the pot I'm gonna stick this rib instead of going all the way down to the bat I'm actually gonna stick it right in that spot right about there and then I'm going to start my shape from there now I might have to come back and smooth that foot again because they're doing that but that's okay I can I can I can manage that so instead of having my tool now down on the wheel hand I'm gonna come up on the top side of that foot that I just made and start making the shape of the pot that I'm gonna make so that takes some practice because you gotta used to not having your rib all the way down on the wheel head when you start shaping but and you can see what I mean here to me that foot is a little bit too wide for the shape of the piece but just for the sake of showing you guys you can see I went back and smooth that off and then I stick my sponge in there to kind to me that foot is a little bit too wide for the shape of the piece but for this one I'm just gonna leave it and then and then from here I could just finish off the shape of whatever I want to do with the top I may not keep this one anyway just because I don't like the size of the foot but just to finish it off we'll just do something simple and wide or open like that right there like I said not a fan of that as a whole because of the size of the bottom but that's just me I like the size of the bottom of my pieces to be a lot smaller it makes them look more elegant and more elevated and lifted so let me get one more of those one pounders and I'll cut that foot off and then make it smaller and we'll we'll show you that all right here's this one that I made so now this one I'm actually gonna take as I said I'm gonna come in with this tool and I'm going to use the point of it and I'm gonna put it up against the pot and then I'm actually going to cut straight down like you normally would to cut that extra clay off because I want to make a little bit smaller bottom on this and it's a lot harder to do that with your finger pushing in way in than it is with the tools so a lot of times making vases I will do that I'll cut off that extra clay and then as I start pushing in I get the bottom about the size that I want it and this is the probably the trickier way to do this because it takes more steadiness in your hand I'm actually going to take my rib hold it up off the wheel about the height of the foot that I want and then as I have my healing said I'm actually gonna push in up above probably right about there and that's gonna leave a little bit extra clay there for me to shape so like I said this is a little bit trickier because you got to be really steady push in that clay and not pushing too far that you mess up the shape of the pot or a core cut the pot off of that base so there I've kind of protruded out the clay and then I kind of come back and shape it the same way I would have but now I've got a lot smaller base than that last one but then I can come back and get the shape that I want add a little bit of water to the top here close that into a nice skinny neck cut off that wobble if you guys can see it I don't know I've got it focused in on the foot hopefully you guys can see the top of this if not I'll show you guys all these pots when I'm done anyways but getting myself a wobble again that's alright I can cut that off even that up all right so to me like I said the bottom of that looks a whole lot better being a little bit smaller kind of complements the size of the shape of the piece all right I'll grab one of the two pound balls and we'll do the same angle with one of those and then we'll switch angles and show you making that foot on two different kinds of pieces from a different angle all right now with this ball what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna take all that extra clay like I said that was there and we're just gonna do the same thing I'm gonna wet it put these two fingers down around the outside on the left-hand side now if you're left-handed of course switch it around but I'm gonna push him to the bottom and turn that clay up with this rib and inform that foot and I do this on both I do this before I ever shape the bowl that way I can get down there and get in and make the shape of that foot that I want and then come back and shape the bowl and I'll show you how I do that here in a second so going in and I'm this one I'm applying good amount of pressure with my thumb there to help kind of push that in and and help make the foot a little bit smaller and then undercut it like that all right then I can come in clean that off and now you can see the foot that's there already and it's undercut nicely and I've already got that now like I like I did with the other one I'm gonna come in and start throwing with my rib right on top of that foot right there and then and then shape the ball from that point up okay so now I'm gonna take usually what I do is after I make that foot I clean off around the foot and I clean off around the whole rest of the bat and then I keep the sponge in my hand I add a little water to the sponge and then I had just a little bit of water down the inside of the bowl that allows this hand not not to drench the inside of the ball but allows this hand to guide glide smoothly on the inside and I've already cleaned off the bat and I don't have to worry about doing that later so I'm gonna hold this rib right on top of that foot push out against my rib from the inside and shape the bowl from the top of that foot I'll do it up and then back down [Music] and then now I've got the foot and I've got the inside of the ball and I'm feeling of course as I shaped that I feel the inside of the bowl with my left hand and get the curb that I want as well as the look on the outside I want to put a little swirl on the bottom I do that now and there we go so now you can see the foot on that is done and there's a little bit of roughness there that I didn't get cleaned off but I can get that off later after it dries probably I ought to just move my gauge either way I'm not making them to a gauge right at the moment this one might be a difficult one to do but I'm gonna adjust this camera down try to stand behind the camera while I make this putt now as this as this tool that I use here as the tip of it gets dull you'll have it more and more of a challenge of getting that undercut so over time this will wear down from doing that undercut and you'll have to just either sharpen it or get a new tool so you'll see my old tools I'll grab one can tell you you'll see my older tools over time we'll get that cut right there now you can still use that for a while but after a while that gets too much of a of a cut away on it and you really can't get that nice sharp undercut that you see there so over time I have to just buy new tools and and use them for that so there you can see I've undercut that nicely and got the smoothness from my thumb and my index finger come back with my sponge cleaning that off and clean the bat off now I'm gonna add some water to the inside of the bowl and then try with my camera being here to shape the bowl I can't really get where I want to to look at it to shape this is very difficult but the camera being in front of me hopefully this is helping you guys but you can see there I've shaped it inside and out now I guess you can't see it from that angle exactly hopefully the the angle though of before when I put that foot on there really helped all right put the swirl on the bottom and then we will switch angles again all right here we are back with the last bowl and the last small vase or whatever it is the one-pound piece for the foot and got a different angle here hopefully this will help with another angle but like I said I'm gonna go ahead and add the water just like you did with the other ones take my tool push it up under the bottom and now you can see what my index finger is doing on that side my thumb does most of the work but still just having my index finger there to help control some of that and catch some of that extra clay that comes off is always good here I'll try to also show you from this angle what my rib is doing there so I kind of go down and undercut it and then kind of come back up and round that and then right now I'm gonna clean that off around that foot with my sponge add a little bit of water to the inside like before like I said then I might have to come back and clean that up a little bit around that part here's the last one pound piece and then maybe we'll make one from start to finish and we'll see if it gets included into the video or not it really just depends on on how much time we got I'm gonna go ahead and cut away the excess like I did on the second one just so that you can see that in so I can make a finish piece that I really like but if I want to cut away that extra clay right down there do with that wouldn't do that with my rib come back and I'm going to push you in to get the size of the bottom that I want then I'll try to come around this side so you can see a little bit what I'm gonna do is come up off the bat a little bit push you in sometimes I go ahead and start shaping or sometimes I'll go ahead and smooth that foot before I start shaping undercut that like normal then I'd come back and like said hold my rib right at the top of that foot and then start my shape from there all right we'll do one more two pounder from scratch from this angle go all the way through this one because it'll be a pretty quick process anyways one of the things I also do when I'm making bowls like this a lot of times I'll I'll curve the inside of the bottom it's going to leave a little bit extra thickness out towards the edge but a lot of that I kind of get away when I undercut and make that foot anyways but just to get the inside of the bowl kind of a nice curve I do that as well these bowls will be from my wood firing so I'm leaving a nice thick rim on these so help keep the shape and the roundness of them when they get fired in that extreme atmosphere alright so there I got my plate at the bottom and my water like that now I go ahead and clean that up with my sponge cleaning off the rest of the bat add the water to the inside and shake starting right on top of that and my swirl to the bottom clean out the inside with my sponge and then I usually put that sponge down the outside and then right up again steps one more time to smooth it around well there you have it there is the technique on how I make that foot on various shapes of pots and I've developed that technique and use that for years so if you don't get it right away just keep trying it you'll figure it out and you'll get it hopefully you can see all the feet on these - this one this one sitting down below you probably can't see that foot from where it was sitting that's the last bowl we made but as I said like this first one to me that foot is way too wide for the the style of that pot but you know that's just part of part of making pots is learning what's shape and what style you like and then figuring out how to make that shape and style consistently one of the things that I prefers to make a little bit smaller base on a piece just makes it look more elegant and elevated and so these last two I was definitely able to do that with and get that nice little foot on the bottom which really finishes the bottom of the piece for years when I first started making I would just kind of come down to the base and I would still undercut the bottom which wouldn't make it look really nice but now I've gotten used to and and really developed this style that I like unless the bottom of the pot kind of comes out of the base then you really can't roll that foot up quite the same a lot of those I will undercut and then put a little catch line there or a finish line at the bottom so it really just depends on the shape of the piece but for anything that kind of starts at a base and bellies out I love putting that foot and like I said all these bowls they kind of have that foot on it also gives you a nice place that when you're glazing to glaze to that line where that foot is as I said earlier there's nothing wrong with a trim foot on a piece and if you prefer that then by all means you trim a foot on your balls and your vases your pots whatever you want to do because you're the one that's going to be living with your pots or selling them then you need to be proud of what you're making so like I said this is not to take the place of that if that's what you prefer then that's what you need to do but if you want to make a foot on a piece especially a vase a lot of times people don't trim them a foot on a base and the nice way to finish the bottom of the vase is to have that little round foot there and it just makes that piece look really finish sitting on a shelf or on the table so that's a great way to finish that so by all means if you like a trim foot then you do that for you and but I hope this video helped you learn some techniques and showed you some different angles of how to make that foot on your pieces and anyway thank you guys for being here as always and I hope you learned something hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you in the next video thanks bye [Music]

Channel: Matthew Kelly Pottery

Views: 14,720

Keywords: pottery, throwing pottery, matthew kelly pottery, tips and tricks, teaching, learing, pottery demonstration, ceramics, handmade, wood fired pottery, vase, bowl, tutorial

Id: XbBgd1euObg

Length: 26min 10sec (1570 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 15 2020