Centering Clay for Large Pottery Bowls

Video Transcript

"Alright now we are going to center the clay. Throw it on the wheel, it makes a little noise, might make the studio shake a little bit. You are going to start this off a little differently than the smaller bowl. You are going to whack it into shape a little bit more and make sure that my body is completely wrap around this wheel that my nose is directly on top of that center of the clay so I know that my body is close enough and I can use my whole body. Now again I'm just going to push off first, drizzle a little bit more water on there get my elbow into my hip, push forward, and then I'm going to push it down. As soon as I feel any resistance I put little bit more water on there. I'm using the palm of my hand and pushing down. The difference between centering a small piece and a large piece is that I try not to grab the whole clay at one time with the large piece cause it is so much effort. So instead of criss crossing and pushing down and doing that karate chop I'm actually opening the clay and centering at the same time. By putting the heel of my hand into the clay. And I push down and as I do that my thumb right here is just crossing over this edge. Sometime a little bit comes off like that when I do this this is pushing forward, this is down and get that to a certain point I'm going to take my hand and bring it this way towards my other hand. That is going to center like a section at a time so I'm centering like this section right here by it is all actually center cause it is moving into that section. I'm opening it up just like I opened up the small bowl but I'm using my whole hand to do it. "