More ways to Shape Clay into Pottery Bowl Forms

Video Transcript

"I'm also at this point going to take a little tool which is called the rip tool and this is just a piece of rubber, then I'm going to put that along the outside of it. I'm going to push that tool into the clay and that is going to make a very smooth surface for the outside of the clay. This is not necessary you don't need to do this but I tend to decorate all my pots and if I have and throwing lines in there I can't decorate it properly. Now that is the shape of the outside but I also have to work on the inside of this. So I'm going to take my rib tool and I'm going to push the clay down just a little bit to get that nice flowing center of the bowl rather than a side and a bottom. It is just one you want the bowl to really flow when you put your utensils in it you don't want to clunk it around. The bottom of this right now is pretty much a smooth surface. One of the things that I really love to do on my pot is to put a spiral in it and that is I'm going to hold my tool like this, I'm going to push it down a little bit. My wheel is going fairly slow and I'm going to pull out rather quickly and that is going to give me a spiral. I like the spiral for a few reasons I think it is a nice decoration but it is also a accent symbol of creations and constant process and I think of my pot in constant process so I put that in each one of my pots. It is a little symbol that I do. I'm going to go back to the outside and just kind of play with that just a tiny bit just to get it really the shape that I want. "