Pulling for beginners (common mistakes)

but it's not like I'm gonna convince all the other potters in the world to call it squeezing up so we're just gonna keep on calling it pulling hello you dirty Potter's how are you today today we are going to be talking about pulling now if you're a true beginner there are probably something you need to know before you get started with this step right here I have already made videos on how to do those things and you should most likely watch them before you continue to this step not linked up down below for you all sexy like because wedging centering and opening your clay are really the foundation of what's gonna make this pulling step way easier for you and if you don't know how to do those things proficiently well this step is just gonna be a lost cause for you you really need to know how to prepare your clay for this next step pulling is probably one of the most difficult things you can do as a beginner Potter but once you have this one step down the rest of your artwork becomes way easier to make and you start understanding your clay and your work a lot better this is essentially the make-or-break phase there's technically no right or wrong way to pull everyone pulls a little bit differently but here we're gonna go over the basic things that most people do when they do pull and some tips and tricks on how to make that a little bit easier for you first let's Center and open our clay [Music] in this video we're really gonna concentrate on the pulling techniques and really understand why we are pulling and how we are pulling far too many videos do I see on YouTube just show you how to pull and yet people still don't understand what the act of pulling actually is and how it really relates to your clay body but in this video we're gonna go over what pulling actually is cut some of these cylinders in half and really look at how we pull and how the clay reacts to our fingers when we pull that means it's gonna be lots of talking so you get off Instagram Potter tip we wedged centered and opened our clay the next step naturally is to start pulling but there's one little Potter tip that I have for you that has helped me massively throughout the years and that is to even out your clay before you start pulling when I got into the intermediate classes of my work I was taught this rule called the three pole rule the three pole rule is a very simple rule that states that the most height you can get within three pulls is most likely your maximum height and anything more than that you're probably going to over stress the clay but as it stands right now all the clay in which I just compressed into this little spot is all right here all the clay that I had centered and coned up and down all of that clay is in this little donut right here and that's a lot of clay all of it is extremely dense the majority of the weight is down here and most likely whenever I make a finished product it's going to be extremely heavy for what it's supposed to be a little trick that I learned is to even out my clay before I even start pulling what you do is you get a little bit of water you put it on the outside and the inside of your clay body you get your knuckles and you just push it right up against the clay body just like this watch me even this out right here it doesn't look like a pull but the clay will go up and even itself out [Music] you see these little ridges in the clay this is the pressure I put upon the clay with my knuckles but you can probably also see that the clay went up from here to about here a little bit and that's simply because I've now evened out my clay by sticking constant pressure with my knuckles this technique can be used on bigger pieces of clay and usually within my throwing videos you'll see me do this this is because it essentially erases one full pull in fact now I basically do one to two pools for most of my artwork first let me start by showing you what a natural pool looks like that was a very basic pull and there's two or three things that really stop beginners from pulling in that way number one is hand positioning there are a bunch of different ways to position your hand for pulling but the primary thing you need to know is that when I first started pulling you did see me pinch off a little piece of clay at the very bottom just like this this is what I call the caterpillar that's not the real name of it don't spread that around what you've essentially done is you've compressed the bottom and forced that clay that was all the way down at the bottom of your cylinder to come up a little bit and ready to be pulled and because of that I never want my finger to go over this little caterpillar right here it's not as if I'm gonna pinch that little piece of clay off and then start pulling up here that really wouldn't get the majority of the clay I just ready to be pulled all the way up there I'm trying to move this entire piece of clay I just pinched off all the way from the bottom of my cylinder all the way to the tippy top far too often do I see beginners just start pulling just like this without a care in the world for how much clay is at the very bottom of their cylinder yes you might get a little bit of height yes it might look like you're pulling but honestly you didn't get much clay the entire point of pulling is to get the clay from the bottom of your cylinder all the way to the top and that means if you're not starting all the way directly at the bottom and pinching yourself off a piece of clay in order to pull to the top you're not really pulling you're kind of just moving the clay around a little bit until it gets too tired to actually move the second thing that not only do you need to know but you're most likely curious about is what position you should hold your hand in I've seen people pull like this I've seen people pull like this I've seen people pull like this but I prefer and the way that I learned to pull was with the very ends of my fingertips like this I prefer to lead with my longest finger as that's the way I learned and I only use other forms of pulling whenever I really need to because every form of pulling has its own utility that being said the one thing that all of those forms are pulling have in common is that their hand is usually not only a little bit wet but also on the inside of their cylinder leading with their longest finger I think the one thing that a lot of teachers seem to not really understand as far as lingo goes with ceramic artwork is that our language is a little bit different from that of normal language in that pulling is not really pulling like pulling a rope what you're really doing is you're squeezing the inner walls of the clay body to force it to move up watch this right here I'm gonna squeeze from the outside and I'm gonna squeeze from the inside I'm technically not going to pull or move my hands at all I'm simply just going to squeeze a little bit of pressure do you see that do you see how the clay moved from here all the way up here and this part of the clay body got a little bit thinner this is basically what pulling is the only difference is you're going to be squeezing at a constant pressure like this while you're moving your hands upwards in a consistent motion it has nothing to do with actual pulling of a rope this looks weird I should stop that it has everything to do with pressure and squeezing much like the first thing I was talking about the only difference is that I'm going to be pinching off a little piece of clay right here and moving my hands upwards while I'm pinching while I'm pulling basically let me show you the inside real quick you see this this is the inside wall of your pulled cylinder and here is all the clay that is left down here that it is your job to pull upwards it's like dissecting a frog but clion stead when I push from the outside just like this there is a reaction on the inside of the clay and the clay pushes inwards just like this but I don't want that if I push pressure on one side of course it's going to react on the other side so of course I need to put counter pressure on the inside by pushing my fingers right here and this is the action of pulling my inside finger is braced against the inside wall my outside finger is a little bit lower than my inside finger and I'm pulling just like this this is basically what it looks like except for you know it's like spinning and stuff the positioning of your hands when the outside is pretty easy you leading with your longest finger and you just push in just like this but I think a lot of people get confused with their inside finger your outside and inside finger aren't really meeting at a single point just like this yes this will most likely squeeze up the clay but what you're really doing is you're having the inside finger a little tiny bit higher than your bottom finger and this is where the wedge or the little caterpillar that I had mentioned earlier sits and is able to be pulled up just like this Potter tip but I feel like I shouldn't have to say but evidently I do the entire point of putting water over your clay body is so that it hydroplanes right over your fingers but your fingers can still put a little bit of pressure if your clay starts pulling or feeling dry whatsoever go ahead and stop your wheel either dip your hands in water or reapply with a sponge a little bit more water to the desired spot on the clay body and continue pulling this might be a little bit difficult as some people don't know how much water they need to actually have that hydroplane effect happen on their fingers but if your fingers feel dry or the clay body starts pulling a little bit too much there's no shame and simply stopping your wheel and getting a little bit more water you know because duh the way I was taught us to form your fingers kind of like you're a master Italian chef SpaghettiOs my thumb beam braced up against my fingers like this really helps my fingers become stable and I understand that I'm leading in with this right here but this finger also plays an important part as well it also helps to stabilize my middle finger major life changing power tip in previous videos I went over the importance of really bracing yourself against your pottery wheel and having your elbows right up against your knees and having your knees and legs right up against your wheel this is the part where that major formation really comes into play one of the most difficult things that I've ever had to explain to a beginner is that while you're pulling you're not really moving your hands or your wrists your hands and your wrists are actually extremely stable as you pull what you're really doing is you're honestly just moving your elbows you guys most likely didn't see it before but watch me pull one more time and watch my elbows versus my hands you see for that entire motion and pull I really just had my hands in this formation fingers at the bottom finger on the inside braced and pulling that little caterpillar up but while I was doing so I'm honestly keeping the same formation with my hands and I'm just moving my elbows there's nothing else that's moving this is what's allowing me to keep maximum stability when I'm pulling it's one of the primary mistakes that I see most beginners do that kind of messes up their cylinder because what usually happens is that whenever they pull they end up taking one of their elbows off or both of their elbows off and trying to pull like this and this is not stable this is very difficult to pull in this fashion but if you're stable if you're here and you're just moving your elbows you'll be fine the secondary mistake I see them make when not just trying to have the elbows is simply just moving their hands by themselves and they'll try and do something like this and their pottery just kind of ends up like this if you just move your elbows they will essentially move together but if you move your hands one can go a little bit faster than the other and it's a little bit more difficult I'm telling you it seems crazy but once I learned to only move my elbows instead of my hands my life became a lot year sadly enough the real learning curve here that I can't honestly teach you from a video is that you're gonna have to learn consistency and pressure by yourselves you see when I first started I was extremely pressured with my clay pulling I I almost tore stuff off stuff would rip off of the wheel every now and then because my walls were too thin and that was a sign that told me that I would have to release pressure on that specific part or at least while I'm pulling but there are two main Potter tips I can tell you about that would not only help you out with your pressure but also the twisting of your pottery number one even though you might have plenty of water on your cylinder and you're pushing pressure the wheel is still technically moving at a constant speed and your fingers are still creating pressure on the cylinder right here and because of that that friction is causing that specific spot on your pottery to move a little bit slower than the rest of the speed of the wheel this primarily for beginners is what causes twisting along with the fact that your clay body might be a little bit too thin if I decide to slow down or hold one part of my clay body a little bit too long like this my clay body will start to twist and that is specifically in this case because I was putting friction and pressure right here while the wheel is still moving at a constant space yes they might be twisting together like this within the same motion but if I put pressure on one one's going a little bit slower as the other one is still staying at the same speed and this is causing a twist in the clay body this is a very strong sign that I need to move my hands a little bit faster you see even when I cut it in half you can clearly see the space in which the clay tried to collapse on itself because of the access pressure that I put on this one spot kind of leads on to the next point when you're pulling you should always finish a pull all too often do I see beginners start to pull just like this and they'll freak out and let go really fast but they don't want to give up so later on they'll just start from that same point and start pulling now this is clearly a problem because now you have a major contradiction in the thickness of your clay this is not one even pull if you start to pull you need to finish your pull even if it's not a good pull or else you'll get one of these things well thank you dirty products for joining me today I know this was a lot of information to be fair but this is the most difficult part for a beginner when they first start to learn how to do ceramic art work so I'm giving you guys a lot of basically tips so that they can help you out I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to close this video out with multiple shots of me pulling so that you guys can not only watch my hand formation where my elbows are how I'm pulling how much pressure I'm putting and some of the things that I'm doing to really keep constant pressure at the end of this video I'm gonna just kind of let that play out so you guys can really watch and absorb what I'm doing with my hand formations the one thing that I really want you to take away from this is that I use consistent pressure I'm not moving my hands I'm mainly moving my elbows as they're braced against my knees and whenever I start a pull I'm finishing a pull I think the main two things that I see most beginners do whenever they're pulling is to hesitate and get scared and not be assured of themselves and pull back only to go back at that same space and that'll mess up your entire clay body the second thing that I usually see is they're not fully braced and because they're not fully braced and hunched down right against the wheel their hands are bucking everywhere and they're trying to pull like this and it's it's simply not working but it's clearly for the reason that you're not braced you're not grounded it is necessary when you're on the wheel to have an extreme base and be extremely stable and consistent with your pulling to guide the clay and not try and just force it to go anywhere you want but thank you guys for joining me today I'm just gonna let this play out and let you guys watch me pull a little bit more if you like to see any of my artwork the links are always down below of course and of course we have a fantastic face book and discord community if you like to join those as well there's plenty of other dirty potters over there who are always willing to give you some helpful advice I hope you guys have a fantastic day and good luck on your next projects [Music] I've destroyed so many of these in the interest of showing you guys had a poll

Channel: Earth Nation Ceramics

Views: 213,360

Rating: 4.9420071 out of 5

Keywords: pottery, pulling for beginners, ceramic art, ceramic, clay, centering, help, pulling, craft, earth nation ceramics, Potter, cone 5, cone 6, glaze recipe, glaze, kiln, wheel thrown, handmade, how to, pottery class, pulling clay, pulling a wall

Id: psiJ7QaqnbE

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Thu May 09 2019