Pottery Pitcher: Throwing a Cylinder

Video Transcript

"So we are throwing a pitcher today and as you can see we have thrown a nice cylinder here and I am now going to demonstrate how to shape it. The first thing we want to do is get rid of any excess clay at the bottom and this is going to help us later in trimming and also just give us a nice base to work from so there we go. Now for shaping I like to use ribs. Some people like to use their hands but I find that these are good because you are squeezing the clay between the two ribs and it strengthens the clay and allows you to make thinner forms. Now pitchers of course can vary in shape and size and whatever kind of look you want so I am just going to form a pretty standard looking pitcher. There are two parts to forming a pitcher. There is forming the base form and then the top form. First I am going to demonstrate how to open the bottom form and leave enough clay at the top to form the top piece so here we go. I am going to hold one rib on the outside and I am going to hold my rounded rib on the inside and I am going to push against the inside of the wall and push it on to the other rib and see how that is starting to open up my form and I am simply going to work up through the form like so. Now you don't want to try to push too hard at first you want to just kind of take it up nice and easy so you can see I am leaving enough clay on top for the top section and we have started to open the form and I am now going to push a little bit more and open it just a touch. So you can see how that rib on the inside is really shaping that clay. So now you can see we have opened a nice rounded form for a pitcher and we have enough clay on top to make the pouring edge of it and I would like to stress again that this really does take a lot of trial and error and the best thing to do is to just try over and over again and not place too much value on the individual piece and we have thrown the base of it and now I am going to show you how to throw the top of our pitcher."