Introduction Working with Clay Pinch Pots Slab Building Coil Building Throwing Glazing Safety in the Pottery Gallery of Student's Work

Things to remember About Throwing Make sure the ball of clay to be thrown is well prepared and spherical. Throw it hard into the centre of the wheel head. It helps to keep your left elbow firmly jammed up against your hip-bone, as this enables you to put most of your body weight behind you. Let the clay know who’s boss – you are! Make sure your hands are well lubricated with water. You may prefer to use hot water in the winter! Centring the clay is the most important part of throwing – if it’s not centred properly, you’ll never finish up with a perfectly round pot. Focus on the centre of the wheel-head. Make the wheel go as fast as it can for centring. Keep your hands touching each other as much as possible so you are using them together as one tool. You will have much more control this way. Use the heel of your left hand to push the left hand side of the clay and the heel of your right hand to press down on the top of it. Alternate the forces between your left hand and your right in order to start centring. Once it’s almost centred, you can start to ‘cone’ the clay. This means squeezing it with both your hands wrapped around it and then pushing it down with the heel of your right hand while controlling it with your left, as when you first started centring. Do this a few times until it’s well and truly centred. Cup your hands around the clay and gently but firmly push your thumbs into the centre of the clay making sure you keep your thumbs touching or you will finish up with a ‘nipple’ in the middle of the pot! Slow the wheel down a bit once you starts pulling up the walls. Whenever your hands leave the pot or come into contact with it again, make sure they do so while the wheel is going round and move your hands into/out of contact slowly. Jerky motions will result in an uneven pot. The higher and wider you go, the slower you must go. Remember not to try to ‘pull’ the clay up. Squeeze the clay and pull your hands up. Squeeze the clay between the finger on the inside of the pot and the finger on the outside, keeping your hands touching whenever possible. Draw the walls up and then squeeze between your two hands (collaring) a couple of times before shaping the actual pot. In order to make the pot grow wider, have your outer finger slightly lower than your inner one. To make the walls come in, have the outer digit higher than the inner one. Use a needle to tidy up the rim if it is too uneven. Tidy up the bottom edge of the pot with your finger or thumb as you are throwing. When you have finished throwing the pot, tidy up the bottom with a turning tool. You can help the finished shape with a throwing rib.

Decoration
All the usual methods of decorating are open to you with your thrown pot and, of course, you can carry out some of these methods on the wheel itself; for example, scratching, scoring and painting, but you also have the opportunity to produce ‘agate ware’. This is done by throwing two or more different colours of clay (of types, as long as they ‘fit’ one another) without prior mixing. As the pot takes shape on the wheel, so does an interesting geological pattern. N.B. Take care not to use toxic materials when making agateware, or use disposable gloves and discard any waste clay or keep in a marked container separately.