Centering Clay to Make Pottery Bowls

Video Transcript

"Now that we have wedged our clay we are over to the potters wheel and the potters wheel this particular potters wheel is electric and the switch is right here and I turn on the switch and have a foot pedal and that controls the wheel and the wheel spins. I have my wedged piece of clay put that right down in the center of the wheel. Now the object of this process right here is to make this piece of clay center and not wobbly. So I start out by just putting a little bit of water on it, I wet my hands and I push downward first and that inheres the clay to the wheel. Then I put my elbow in my hip and I use my whole body to push the clay forward and then I take my right hand and I push that clay into my left hand and I criss cross again and I push down like that. Or I can use this method which I call a karate chop method and I just line my hand up with my thumb and I push down. But I keep that pressure with my elbow pushing forward, using my whole body. If you don't use your whole body you are going to end up with a very very tired wrist and in the long run if you do this for a number of years you are going to get very very bad wrist like carpal syndrome or something like that. Okay so now the clay is center now a lot of my students ask well how do I know that it is center. Well if I put my finger on the side you can see that the clay is touching my finger evenly. Watch as I just push it off so now it is touching my fingers unevenly so I'm going to start that process again where I push forward and I push down and now it is center it is touching my finger evenly. "