Pulling a Clay Pitcher Spout

Video Transcript

"Now what's going to make this a pitcher instead of just a vase is going to be the spout. There's a number of different ways to make a spout. The easiest and probably the oldest way is just to pull the spout right directly on the pot. You get your fingers very wet. You want to get a lot of water on this clay. You need it to be very lubricated. Any friction and you might accidentally pull the spout right off the pot which you don't want to do. Now what you do is you just take your fingers and you're pinching very gently and pulling up. You have to do this for quite a few times. It takes a little while. You have to be patient. But you just barely pinch it and pull it over and over and over. And it's going to thin out the lip. This is why we left a thick rim. So that we'd have clay to pull up. And you can go back and forth side to side to smooth out the ridges. Your fingers are going to cause vertical ridges that you probably don't want. And we just keep doing this. And once we've got the amount of stretch that we're looking for we're just going to fix the edge so that it's nice and smooth. Take your forefinger and your thumb of your left hand and place them on the edge. Take your sponge and push out and pull up gently again. Because this is another step where you can accidentally pull the spout off if you're not careful. And you push in a little bit with your fingers. And then once you've got the general shape that you're looking for I like to add one more little detail where I take these two fingers again and I pull this finger through and just give a little run off. That makes it less likely to dribble when you're pouring out of the pot. Which is really nice. People appreciate that when they buy your pitcher."