Wedging Pottery Clay

Video Transcript

"Alright, in this segment we're going to take a look at how to process the clay if we don't have a pugmill. What I'm, I've got some of the clay that is just come off of the plaster bat here. And what we need to do now is wedge the clay by hand. Now, this is something that you're actually going to do before you use it, even if you do run it through the pugmill, but, if you don't have the pugmill you're going to have to do it even more. So, I need to create a chunk of this clay right here. And what I'm going to do, I'm working on a canvas covered table so that the clay doesn't stick to the surface I'm working on. And, get a nice consistent chunk started. Then I'm going to use the heels of my hands like this to push the chunk of clay slightly in front of me, and roll it back just a little bit, and repeat that motion. So, I'm going to push slightly down with the heels of my hands, roll it back, and do it again. And, once you get the rhythm for it, you should be able to do it pretty quickly. Now, the biggest mistake people make when they first try to do this is that they push too much. They take the clay and they flatten it out like that and then they fold it back over on itself and, in the middle there, is a big air gap, air bubble. Now, if you do it right, the wedging process will actually remove some of the air bubbles and it homogenizes the material. It works the slightly denser spots into the softer spots and makes it all nice and smooth for use in your forming process, whatever that may be. So, don't want to add more air to it than you're removing. So, again, push down slightly roll back. Push down slightly, roll back. And repeat that process over, and over, and over again. Now, you can see, the material is spiraling a little bit. This method is called the Ram's head method because it looks like the snout of a Ram and the spiral of a horn, for instance. You can also try the cone wedging method which just puts a little bit more pressure on one side than the other and, you can see, you end up with more of a cone shaped piece of clay. I like to do it both ways, flip the piece around and work it with one method, flip it around and work it with another method. That way I'm really ensuring that I'm homogenizing material completely and getting in all the lumps and bumps worked out."