Opening Clay in Pottery

Video Transcript

"In this clip we're going to talk about opening the clay, preparing it for throwing. I have centered my clay already. I'm going to take my fingers and I'm going to push down in the middle of the clay. Again, it's important to put water on the clay here to keep it nice and moist and your fingers sliding across the surface. You'll notice I'm opening it up at an angle, coming in at a slight angle. I don't want to go straight down with my fingers. That isn't, it can make it be off center. So again, pushing down. I want to think about the future with this and not go too far down to the bottom. I want to leave myself a nice floor on the bottom and not have it create a hole down in there on the bottom. So I'm trying to think ahead about what kind of a base I'd like for this. You notice I've opened it up and I've left a little bit of room down there. You can take your pin tool and see how much room you have down at the bottom. And here I have left a nice little bit of a bottom for my pot."