How to Make Pottery Vases
Pottery vases are one of the favorite pieces that every potter--whether amateur or professional--tries their hand. Pottery vases are as simple, or as complex as your skill allows you to make, but a small, bell-shaped vase is an excellent project for learning how to use a pottery wheel. These vases teach all the basic elements of 'throwing' on a wheel, such as centering and pulling the clay.
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Things You'll Need
- Clay
- Pottery wheel
- Bucket of water
- Sponge, small
- Pottery tools/knife shaped wood
- Fishing wire
Instructions
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Place a piece of clay firmly down on the center of the pottery wheel--around 2 pounds is ample for a small vase. Wet the clay by squeezing a little water over it with the sponge. Keep the sponge and bucket of water within arms reach of the wheel.
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2
Place your elbows firmly on your thighs and center the clay using both hands on either side of the clay piece, while the pottery wheel is on medium-to-high speed. Don't try to pull or push the clay, just bear your weight down, until the pieces stops wobbling, and the wheel and clay turn smoothly. Drip a bit more water on the clay.
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3
Place your thumbs in the center of the clay, and slowly press them downwards, while your fingers are around the edge of the clay piece. Keep pressing your thumbs down, as a hole forms in the center of the clay. Leave around 1 inch between the bottom of the wheel and the bottom of the hole. Add a little more water the outside of the pot, mopping up any water from the hole.
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4
Place the fingers of one hand inside the hole, thumb on the rim, and the fingers of the other hand on the same place, but on the outside. Squeeze gently in a slight upwards motion, and the clay will begin to rise up, becoming thinner as you get higher. Add more water as needed. This is called pulling the clay.
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5
Continue to pull the clay upwards, making sure that it doesn't get too thin. More clay from the base can be pulled into the main cylinder of the vase by repositioning your hands right at the bottom, and pulling the base clay up. Keep one hand inside the vase cylinder and one hand on the outside.
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6
Guide the clay outwards to make a bell shape in the vase, by pushing slightly outwards with the inside hand. The smallest of movements have an effect when pulling clay, so go gently. Similarly push lightly inwards with the outside hand at the top to bring the sides of the vase closer together at the top.
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7
Run your thumb and forefinger over the rim of the vase once the body shape is how you want it. This will help give it an even width.
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8
Place the pottery tool, or wooden knife-like tool at the base, right against the pottery wheel. Move the tool slowly inwards, and it will scrape away excess clay, leaving a nicely finished base.
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9
Take a piece of fishing wire, wrapping the ends in each hand, and sliding the taught wire under the base of the vase, as close as possible to the pottery wheel, once the wheel is turned off. Lift the vase off carefully, and set in a draft-free area to dry, for around four or five days, after which you can fire it.
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References
- Photo Credit Hands shaping clay on potter"s wheel image by fotosergio from Fotolia.com
