Compressing Clay for Making Clay Bowls

Video Transcript

" Hi I'm Kevin and on behalf of ExpertVillage.com. Our next step is compression this is very important. If we don't compress the clay down at the bottom we are going to end up with a crack like I showed you earlier. And how we do that again water on the clay because my hands will get wet soon as I touch it nice and slick. So our pot is nice and thick and what we want to do is compress it down. And how we do this we take one finger sometimes you can use two and again touching. We start in the center and I start pressing down you can see little divot right there. We start pressing down and pulling out and then since this is a bowl I'm going to make the bottom do this. So it's a bowl if you want a flat bottom bowl that's fine too. See these little rings those are little throw rings those are good there nice and tight together. And what we don't want is this unless it's a decorational piece that you do toward the end. But generally I tell people you want to do it three times, there's one, then back down and I'm pressing down and there's two this fingers doing all the work right here but the rest of them rest of this hand this hand this hand is all for stability. And I?m pressing down but not so hard that I go down to the bat. Need to add some more water and here comes the third one. Back up and if you feel like you've got to do more or things are things are cracking on you do it as many times as want. As long as those rings right there, those lines are nice and tight together bringing it up."