Ceramic Flower Pot Clay Wedging

Series Summary

Ceramics are art works made out of clay bodies that harden with the application of heat. Originating in Chinese, Cretan, Greek, Roman, and Mayan cultures, ceramics have a long history that dates back to the third millennium BC. Pottery was used to create food and water jars, decorative bowls, sacred urns, and religious idols. Potters most traditionally use their hands, but several tools have been developed to aid in the ceramic making process, including the potter's wheel. Ceramics range from functional vessels to decorative sculptures, and remain both a long loved craft as well as a fine art. Know someone with a green thumb? A homemade ceramic flower pot would be the perfect gift for them. In this free ceramics video series, a master potter will demonstrate how to make a completely unique pot with handles and decorative details. Learn how to prepare your clay and sculpt a pot off of a clay mound. Find out ways to personalize it using a freeform approach and decorative shapes. Perfectly shaped to hang on a wall, this ceramic flower pot is a simple creative gift for your favorite gardener.

Video Transcript

"Alright now we're going to make some what I like to call a little altered flower pots and these are basically just going to be thrown off the hump, and it's best to use terracotta clay if you can because you need to; all you have to do is bisk fire it and there done, and terracotta's nice and porous so when you plant in them it's a; it makes a good planter. And the eventually the terracotta will start deteriorating and it just kind of naturally, it just kind of happens with terracotta and but anyways it will deteriorate and break; and they'll have to buy another one. So you want to start off and we're going to throw this off the hump so we want, we want to wedge it up real good. See what I'm doing here; I'm pushing down and I'm squirming it like that, pushing it down and I'm also tilting it a little bit; tilt, like that. And then this, this forming spiral wedge just like that. And then start bringing it in on itself and we should have a pretty good, wedged chunk of clay."