Pottery - How to Center Clay on the Wheel

hey this is Janice Hughes of evolution stoneware pottery and Hudgens Center for the Arts last night in class I had a request to do a video about centering with a little how-to chatter along the way so I'm going to give that a shot today I've got three pounds of clay I think this will be about enough a big enough chunk for you guys to see what my hands are doing while I'm throwing so I'll give it my best to talk you through it I apologize if I go too fast first thing is get the bat moist we don't want it wet but just moist and plop your clay down in the center you have a couple pads and turn on your wheel I Center at high speed and then get slower as we progress through the throwing get my hands wet you get the clay wet first thing I want to do is press the clay down against the bat so that it gets a good seal one of the worst things or most frustrating things when you're trying to Center is if the clay just comes totally detached from the bat and it is possible for it to fly across the room so I want to ride my hands down the side of this clay and really squash it down into the bat so now I've got a pretty good seal to the bat I don't think it's going anywhere but it's still very uncentered the way that I prefer to centre is called coning basically you squeeze in at the bottom and pull up moving your hands toward the center as you pull up you're going to create a cone of clay and then when we push that down all you do is you Center the very top as you go down so you're not trying to Center this whole three pounds at once you're just centering a little bit at a time so I'm going to squeeze in with the bottom part of my hands pull that right up now comes the part where we push down I push down with my left hand while I create this retaining wall with my right hand on my left hand placed on the top of the clay using this part of my hand this meaty part right below the thumb my right hand I use the whole palm and wrap my fingers around this hand is braced against my body my wheel is raised up so that I can throw standing because it hurts my back quite a bit to throw sitting down for everyone who's sitting down you're going to brace your arms against the inside of your knee I'm going to use my abdomen so I get this nice and wet you don't want your hands to stick or you might twist a big lump of clay off so bracing my arm here my right hand retaining wall I'm going to push down with my left hand the clay has nowhere to go but out as it goes down this hand this right hand that's braced against my body is going to keep it centered it's not going to let it ride off in an uneven pattern so pressing down my hands are touching each other so now you see most the top art is really quite centered already I'm just gonna skim off this little part at the bottom maybe do another small cone to get a fully centered keep that clay wet you don't want your hand sticking at this point now again pressing down with my left hand meaty part under the phone and my right hand Saul palm is the retaining wall on the side now how do I do you want your patty of clay well it depends on what kind of pot you're going to make if I was going to make a bowl I would want to Center this pretty low and wide because Bowl is going to have a wide foot and flare out now on the other hand if I was going to make something tall and skinny I would do it a little more narrow than this so first I'll show you how I would do a bowl probably move this sunglasses still down on my face move it down something like that now with this I would make a pot something like this a nice big bowl with this low patty of clay however I don't like making bowls that much I like making bottles which are tall and skinny so I usually I'm going to work from something more like this and with that I would make a part as you know look something like this a nice tall skinny bottle hope that helps you guys and let me know what else you'd like to see doc you later

Channel: EvolutionStoneware

Views: 293,379

Rating: 4.8908153 out of 5

Keywords: pottery, throw, throwing, clay, center, centering, wheel, potters, stoneware, porcelain, potter, Janis Hughes, Evolution Stoneware Pottery, howto, Making, Crafts, Arts, Tips & Tricks, Help, Ceramic (Visual Art Medium), Ceramic Art (Visual Art Form), Do It Yourself (Hobby), diy, janis wilson hughes, evolution stoneware, teach, Tutorial, Hobby (Interest), artist, earthenware, easy

Id: seZbyX1gpyc

Length: 6min 19sec (379 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 14 2010