Pulling Clay for Beginners

well I'm gonna pour the water into here and then drink from here because like I'm not drinking from plastic hello your dirty potters how are you today today we're gonna talk about the hardest of heart for beginners because well school just started and I'm guessing a lot of you guys need help pulling that's right we're talking about pulling your clay but I'm gonna give you guys a little bit of an emphasis will I do this and there's a couple different ways to do this so we're gonna get our client we're gonna go wedge it and we're gonna see the two different ways that I like to explain how to actually pull your clay before you actually start pulling your clay you need to make sure that your stuff is well centered so I've already made a video on a ways to help you guys Center the link is down below I will put it there so you can watch it with your Potter eyes oh I don't I don't consider myself a a Potter yet Dante I'm just I'm just somewhat in class it's it's too bad there Potter now in my previous videos I always try to emphasize that there's an action list reaction and that's just simply the laws of physics in general not even pottery but just to remind you guys today's emphasis is gonna be on that that when you actually push something in that clay is still substance it don't matter it still has to go somewhere and where does it go if you're squeezing at the bottom it goes up if you're squeezing at the top it might go down but when you pull you're only starting at the bottom of your clay body which means of course you're gonna have to pull it up which of course means the clay is gonna go upwards making your cylinder taller you're not really pulling you're really just squeezing the clay body so that it goes up here look at this little piece of clay right here it's only this tall but if I squeeze right here it's going to move upwards that's exactly what you're doing when you're actually pulling you're not really pulling you're you're squeezing so the clay moves up works the trick of pulling is that you have to make sure it makes at least one full rotation before you decide to move your hands upwards and once you have your hand positioning down it's actually really easy but don't everybody calls it pulling it's not actually pulling that's just the term we use to call it when you pull clay upwards in when you're squeezing clay so it has to move somewhere else these are some really big balls of clay you're probably not using balls this big yeah but I will say it almost doesn't matter unless you're using something extremely extremely small at the point at which you using the ball of clay this big the same rule applied to a big piece of play as you the small ones the only difference is the bigger you get the harder you're gonna have to pull to pull more clay up because there's more plate to pull upwards [Music] not going to call this centered right here and there's a couple of different ways you can actually start to make them whole in which you can pull from inside of your clay body after this I was always taught put my hands together and my middle finger dig in words really slightly and once I reached almost to the bottom and I usually leave about enough space to stop but maybe a quarter of an inch to an inch off I would start to pull my fingers backwards and make kind of a little gully for myself so that it won't take up so much space and I have a lot more clay that being said the way I was taught it's not the way I do it anymore so I'm gonna show you the way I do it and then the next time round I'm gonna show you the way I was taught to do it I usually get my fingers cross them like this and just dig right into the middle right with my two fingers I [Music] found this way out by accident when I got really frustrated and I like this a lot better because it pulls off a little bit the excess clay you don't need and you just put it into your other clay pile of course once we get all the way down to the bottom maybe about right here not extremely bottom but about a half an inch to an inch off I'll start pulling this way which will make a little tiny bullet at the very bottom keep in mind that if you get right here and this doesn't fit you're gonna have to put your entire hand in which means are gonna have to wet this hand to make sure that there's not too much friction so once you get here just start pulling and crumbling your hand this way don't actually pull really just move your fingers very strongly towards yourself imma let you look inside so you can see what I'm talking about this is where we're at right now at the moment I'm gonna take my fingers and I'm gonna pull towards myself and you see the hole getting bigger right you'll notice that this wall here isn't the same length as this wall here I still have a little bit of room I still have a little bit of room to move my fingers but the point is I really want this bottom part to be clunking inwards while you're over here that's where this top part is still right here now here's the difficult you want to take your fingers and the way I was taught was to put them like this because I want the clay to ride along these two even fingers right here which means that if one finger is on the other you might have to put it in pretend you like that especially me Capone after that I would get my sponge and do the same exact hand movement there's a couple of different things that we can adjust to have problems with winner point number one you need to push down here really hard right to make this tiny little caterpillar right here listen the wedge of clay that you're gonna be pulling upwards and this is part of a breathing I told you to make this little gully down in here so you can actually put your fingers in here to pull it upwards but you did notice that when I push this in the clay moved upwards and made a little bump right here that means the clients moving upwards your job is to make sure there's one full rotation before you move your hands upwards again and I see a lot of beginners I like to move their hands up and down you don't really have to if only don't have the right clean technique and the right position you can really just move your elbows upwards and that'll do the trick just fine that way you don't have to stabilize your hand the entire time you can leave your hands in one soft position and just pull like this notice I'm not moving my hands so much as I'm moving my elbows which are attached to my hands and that's the difference in between this and this so my fingers are here I have applied pressure I put it down here now notice one special thing this spot right here is one rotation I am NOT allowed to move my head upwards until I've made one full rotation that means my hands cannot actually move up until I make one rotation at this single mark right here but take this I'm gonna push in with even pressure right I can't actually have one hand push it harder than the other one because then I'm gonna throw it off-center and I really just want to pinch the clay and move my elbows upwards at the same time notice how I'm moving at a pretty steady pace if I move too fast I'm gonna make little wrinkles and mess this up [Music] see that and when I get to the very top don't push as hard just release very slowly release pressure the top is one of the more sensitive parts when you do the top you really don't have to be pulling or pushing as hard as you would at the bottom bonus tip it's a good idea to choke your clay inwards before you do the next pull if your flange is coming out a little too high so if you're in a v-shape and you really want it to be more on a cylinder shape you're gonna want to pull that inwards so the next pull is a lot easier for you [Music] and this one I'm gonna do it without the sponge so you guys can actually see what my fingers are doing while I'm cleaning up words some people use their knuckles some people use the sight of the fingers some people use the size of their hand and in fact them some of you their entire hand when they pull but either way as long as it works for you it's the correct way to do it you want to make sure the inside and the outside of your Clara well lubricated whenever you pull as a trick for this I'll usually put my hand down the side and then sprinkle water on my hand and move it down the entire clay body that what's the entire thing instead of just the top and me pouring water on and if you're being really careful you'll put your hand like this and sprinkle it right down your hand so that way it flows down your fingers and you get two different angles of water so that way you've wet you're inside and you're outside [Music] now when I do this one more time in slow mo so you can actually see what's going on so you can actually understand what's happening to the clay as I'm pulling and I'm gonna straighten up the cylinder so that you guys can actually see the difference image of the texture of my fingers and the texture of the clay before I actually touch it [Music] [Music] you do have to remember though that I'm pushing from the inside with my other hand as well I'm not just putting on the outside my fingers are pushing from the inside and the outside with the same exact stuff the only difference is instead of my fingers being like this on the outside it's like this on the inside so that all the clay pushes right up against my finger right here you probably noticed that when I was done pulling my hand was like this on the inside of the clay right I'm either pushing up against this finger or against these fingers on the inside of the clay you can't just put your hand on the outside and expect to pull up and just leave your hand in there that's not the way it works my hands in there for a reason I'm pushing the clay in between my fingers to move it upwards that's why it's called pulling and I know I explained this earlier but when you have a ball of clay or anything that's valuable for that matter and you push inwards it's gonna have to move somewhere it has to move upwards it has to expand outward and has to go somewhere we're just lucky enough to have a will to where we're gonna probably push it upwards right so as long as I'm putting enough pressure on a constant basis and between two different platforms it's something that's malleable like this it's essentially going to move upwards well I'm not gonna waste clay so I'm gonna finish making this into something then we're gonna do one more pull demo just see that's can really grasp what's going on [Music] this time around I really want you guys to pay attention to my hand position and the amount of pressure I'm putting on some stuff I'm gonna slow this down so you can actually see what's going on as far as the action and reaction towards my clay body but I still want you to really pay attention to what's going on with my hands and where I'm positioning them whether I move through my hands or my elbows or my chest is how close I am to the wheel etc etc because these little tiny things really make a difference in between someone who can pull and can Center and someone who can't because to the common observer they look like they're doing the same exact thing [Music] [Music] I mean I'm not I'm not gonna waste the clay of course I made something about all the time I have today and I really hope that helps some of you new Potter's out there because I know that school just started and all of a sudden my numbers skyrocket whenever school starts cuz people are sharing videos people are like oh my god I found out how to Center from this one weirdo on YouTube I don't know what the this is well thank you guys very much for watching I really hope that helps you new Potter's become better Potter's and really understand the difference in between what bullying is and what actually moving your clay upwards is because it's not really pulling you're just moving your hands upwards of all the Clay's grudges itself because of physics I just want to make that definition clear because while we call it pulling as Potter's it's really not poke pulling it's like when you say you're gonna take a whiz they're not taking a whiz you're not doing it our Kelly style you're giving a whiz your your wizard and I think that definition confused a lot of new Potter's because it's a new world for you guys so anything we tell you you take it as definition air truth that's like oh you must be actually pulling I wouldn't make such a big deal about it if I didn't mean almost like 60% of new beginners are like I don't understand why you guys call it pulling when it's not really it's not really important well thank you guys very much for watching I really hope that helps you on your way to becoming a better Potter especially if you're new by the way welcome to the channel you look nice today if you want to see some of my artwork or even talk to me the links are down below for my Instagram and my Facebook fan page I love you dirty Potter faces and I will see you next Thursday [Music] this cup has had nothing in it the whole time then how am I making syrupy sounds it's a mystery

Channel: Earth Nation Ceramics

Views: 110,910

Rating: 4.9080458 out of 5

Keywords: pottery, clay, help, centering, beginner, puling, ceramic, make, craft, pot, pots, eathnatinceramics, ceramic recipe, recipe, glaze, cone 5, cone 6, cone 10, glaze recipe, art, wheel thrown, wheel, wheelthowing, wheel ceramics

Id: B1xL2fKYaOY

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 07 2017