Pottery Pitcher: Firing the Cylinder

Video Transcript

"There are a few things I'd like to talk about in regards to preparing this for the kiln to be fired; first of all the clay is still now leather hard so this is the last time we're going to be able to do any tooling on it, if we want to do any design work where we press into it and make marks; now is the time to do it. The other thing I would like to talk about is drying; now drying a, a pot like this is; is it's important to know that the vessel, the main vessel should dry out a similar way to the handle and as I said before in; in the tips on drying it is important for this to dry out uniformly. If this part here dries too quickly and the handle doesn't dry as quickly the handle will pop off so we want to keep this, this fairly consistent the drying all threw out this pot. We can do this with a squirt bottle; simply squirting it down periodically to make sure that the moistness is the same all the way around. If we're in a very dry climate we might actually want to put some paper towels onto this and then cover it with plastic; however like I said before we're in Oregon so this is pretty much ready to be put onto my drying rack and it should dry out pretty consistently. The other thing to note with a pitcher is that it's important at this point to clean up any little pieces that you want to clean up so if you want to make the lip smooth now's the time to do it. If you want to take off any little bits of slurry that have formed on the handle or anything like that; smooth out any parts like this, this is the time to do it. O.k. so now we have completed the throwing part of this pitcher; I certainly have enjoyed having you in my studio here today, I hope you've enjoyed being with me. Join us again on Expert Village and learn how to make a variety of different types of ceramics."