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How to center clay on the pottery wheel

3/9/2020

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Centering of clay on the wheel is one of the most crucial parts of wheel throwing. This is the time to get the clay particles in the right place and to build on to the wedged clay process. If the clay is not centered correctly, then the pulling-up of the walls becomes a nightmare.

There are some potters who do not know that you can set the wheel to spin clockwise or anti-clockwise. Right handed potters should let the wheel spin anti-clockwise and left-handed throwers should switch the direction of the wheel head to a clockwise motion. 

Throwing on the wheel is easier if you use technique instead of force. It is easier to get your arm locked on your upper leg and let you leg do the pushing and steadying instead of just your arms.

This is a video clip from the Understanding Porcelain e-course by Antoinette Badenhorst. TeachinArt brings ceramic workshops into the studio of potters around the world, and is the bridge between college students and hobby potters. 

Other interesting links on our online school website:
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Tags:
#centeringclay #wheelthrowing #potterytips #teachinart #wheelpottery #clayshares #ceramicschool #virtualclass
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Tips for throwing cylinders and bowls

2/8/2020

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Wheel throwing tips from David Voorhees

David Voorhees is a functional potter from North Carolina with over 40 years experience in ceramics. He is the instructor of the online workshop Porcelain Tips For Wheel Pottery at TeachinArt.
Several potters have problems with opening and pulling up consistent cylinders or bowl forms. Some of the problems are uneven walls with too much thickness at the bottom, uneven rims, and slumping clay.
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David shows how to throw a porcelain urn.
Picture
David in the recording studio of TeachinArt.
These are all common problems associated with skill development and learning to use porcelain on the wheel. Porcelain does require a bit more of us as craftsmen. It needs to be prepared better and we need to limit the amount of time it is allowed to be fully wet during forming.
Here are my suggestions for those experiencing these common problems:
  • Wedge well, but don’t dry the clay out too much. Keep it covered! (see how to do Spiral wedging, as well as the Bulls head wedging)
  • Center the best you can, using enough water to keep the clay uniformly slippery.
  • Move directly into opening and compressing the bottom.
  • For cylinders, make a pronounced corner on the inside.
  • First pull; aim for uniform thickness with slight taper. Don’t worry about an uneven rim as the clay is being further centered with the wall pulling.
  • Second pull: raise the clay most of the way, you likely will double the height with this pull. Again, aim for a slight taper in wall thickness. If your rim is uneven, trim it now with a needle tool and round and smooth.
  • Continue to raise and shape but use less water as it gets thinner. This stage is where ribs and sponges help. Try wet trimming the “skirt” of clay on the outside base before using ribs.
  • Work in a series to build skills: 6 cylinders or bowl of the same size and shape or several bowls with each slightly larger (weigh them out). As you advance you can throw to a pointer stick. A chopstick in a wad of clay works well. When you have a form that you like, set the pointer ¼” off of the rim. Then work toward making the other like the model pot. Later, you can take weights and measurements so that you know how to produce consistent items. I use 420 grams of clay to make mugs thrown to 4 ¼” tall by 3 ¾” wide at the rim.
  • Work toward following a step-by-step procedure as you work on a series of pots.  Ask yourself what is working and what is not,  then repeat the successful sequence and eliminate the steps that don’t help you. The more that you can develop your own sequence for forming an item like a mug, the quicker that you will make them. This will lessen the stress on the clay.
  • As you master the smaller items like mugs, then you can extend your size range or complexity range. An advanced series may be something like a set of dinner plates, a graduated canister set with lids or a tea set.  Most of the skills that you need will be served by mastering the basic elements that I am covering in my online workshop Porcelain Tips For Wheel Pottery.

Links:
Online workshops at TeachinArt
Art instructors at TeachinArt
Preview the e-courses presented at the art school
Demonstrations & tips by our instructors and other artists and crafter's
Tags:
#potterytips #wheelthrown #wheelthrownporcelain #wheelthrowingtips #ceramicschool #teachinart #wedgingclay #wedging
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Trimming tips for porcelain by Antoinette Badenhorst

1/6/2020

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When is the right time to use blunt tools and when should you use sharp trimming tools? How dry should the pot be before you can start with the trimming? When is the best time in the drying stage to start with the trimming process? Is there a right and wrong way for trimming on the wheel? Which is the best trimming tool? How to trim a foot rim? How to trim porcelain?

​All of these are valid questions by potters and these problems are all addressed in the online workshops at TeachinArt, the online art school where potters can see close-up demonstrations of each process and can learn the best techniques in the comfort of their own place and own time. 

Links:
​E-courses (online workshops)
Demonstrations, tips & techniques
Preview E-courses
Our Art Instructors
Tags: 
​#trimmingclay #wheeltrimming #trimmingtools #trimmingclay #teachinart #trimmingtips #potterytools
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Glazing tips: Prepare your pottery for successful glazing

10/23/2019

2 Comments

 
If you are a potter, how many times have you found a lid stuck to a teapot or lidded box due to the glazing? How many times have you wiped off glaze that you should not have wiped off? How many times did you loose a lovely teapot because you had to break the lid loose from the teapot?

These pictures below are examples of the glazing challenges that potters experience when making anything with a lid on.
Picture
Glazing fault. The teapot broke when the lid was forced off.
Picture
Another glaze fault. The lid got stuck during firing and had to be removed with force from the teapot
Picture
Connie shows the teapot set that she created during the online class.
​Connie Christensen is a ceramic artist from Denver, Colorado and is one of the online art instructors at TeachinArt. She explains how to prevent some of the glazing problems that makes life difficult for potters. Her first online class at TeachinArt (Faceted teapot set) was to teach pottery students how to throw a proper tea set on the wheel - using porcelain clay. She used wiggle wire as the decoration tool for the faceting and demonstrated how to make a cane handle for the teapot. She is also the instructor of the Shino glazing online class.
In the online class, Connie discuss glazing challenges and shows easy techniques for preparing pots for successful glazing.

Links:
Faceted teapot set e-course with Connie Christensen
Shino glazing e-course with Connie Christensen
Glazing made easy e-course with Antoinette Badenhorst (guest artist Lynn Barnwell)
E-courses (online classes) at TeachinArt
Demonstrations, tips and techniques
Our art instructors
Tags:
#facetedteapots #porcelainteapots #makingteapots #teachingartist #Coloradopotter #teachinart #ceramicschool #teapotset #clayteapot
2 Comments

How to make your own plaster bat for the pottery wheel

9/30/2019

2 Comments

 
Antoinette Badenhorst and David Voorhees, both professional potters and teachers at TeachinArt show how to make plaster wheel bats for the pottery wheel. This demonstration was presented during the recording of David's e-course Porcelain Tips For Wheel Pottery at the studio of Antoinette in Saltillo Mississippi.

Mima Boskov from South Africa plaster bats

​Mima Boskov is a South African potter who completed the Understanding Porcelain e-course of Antoinette Badenhorst at Teachinart.
She learned in the online workshop how to make a plaster bat for her pottery wheel and then she decided to create her own version of the plaster bat. That is why TeachinArt is a platform for Artists who teach Artists. Mima is a typical example of one of the success stories of online teaching.

Here is Mima's explanation in her own words.

I took up pottery a few years ago, in an attempt to discover my Creative Self, liberate the Inner Child, find the Artist Within - ah, you've heard it all before: mid-life crisis and how to solve it...

I've been wedging, throwing, despairing, buying books, Googling and reading articles with genuine passion ever since. 

I'm still waiting for the Artist, but I've revealed a determined Artisan Within, and sure have hatched an Inner Gyro Gearloose (for the younger among us, that's the whacky inventor from Donald Duck cartoons). The hatchling grew out of my frustration with relatively poor choice of pottery tools in South Africa: no Mudtools, no Griffin Grip, no Strongarm centering tool, no plaster bat mold systems... So many tempting goodies that one can glimpse on internet pages, but can't source locally. Ordering online involves shipping and import duties, and the price becomes extravagant.

There is an Afrikaans saying in my country: "'n Boer maak 'n plan".

It literally means "the farmer makes a plan", but is used when lateral thinking helps one find a novel and ingenious way of surmounting an obstacle.

I realized that being the Boer with 'n plan and making my own pottery tools gives me almost as much pleasure and sense of achievement as making pots.

We needed plaster bats for the Understanding Porcelain course. I had been trying to develop a plaster bat system for my wheel for a while, and a detail from Antoinette's drawing made everything click together. 
Mima Boskov is a South African potter who completed the Understanding Porcelain e-course of Antoinette Badenhorst at Teachinart.
She learned in the online workshop how to make a plaster bat for her pottery wheel and then she decided to create her own version of the plaster bat. That is why TeachinArt is a platform for Artists who teach Artists. Mima is a typical example of one of the success stories of online teaching.

Here is Mima's explanation in her own words.

I took up pottery a few years ago, in an attempt to discover my Creative Self, liberate the Inner Child, find the Artist Within - ah, you've heard it all before: mid-life crisis and how to solve it...

I've been wedging, throwing, despairing, buying books, Googling and reading articles with genuine passion ever since. 

I'm still waiting for the Artist, but I've revealed a determined Artisan Within, and sure have hatched an Inner Gyro Gearloose (for the younger among us, that's the whacky inventor from Donald Duck cartoons). The hatchling grew out of my frustration with relatively poor choice of pottery tools in South Africa: no Mudtools, no Griffin Grip, no Strongarm centering tool, no plaster bat mold systems... So many tempting goodies that one can glimpse on internet pages, but can't source locally. Ordering online involves shipping and import duties, and the price becomes extravagant.

There is an Afrikaans saying in my country: 'n Boer maak 'n plan.

It literally means "the farmer makes a plan", but is used when lateral thinking helps one find a novel and ingenious way of surmounting an obstacle.

I realized that being the Boer with 'n plan and making my own pottery tools gives me almost as much pleasure and sense of achievement as making pots.

We needed plaster bats for the Understanding Porcelain course. I had been trying to develop a plaster bat system for my wheel for a while, and a detail from Antoinette's drawing made everything click together. 
Picture
Rubber grommet
​For my plaster bats, I used two pieces of dowel (10 mm diameter dowel - matching the diameter of wheel pins - cut to 15 mm length), and a lucky find from a hardware store, electrical department, called "rubber grommet". I have no clue what is it actually meant to be used for, but I browse hardware stores with enthusiasm that normal females reserve for shoe shops, always on a lookout for useful parts for my various projects.
Picture
Dowels with the rubber grommet
Picture
​Before assembling it, I attached a clay coil to the edge of plastic bat, and built it into a thin wall (that came from Antoinette's drawing). ​​Sunlight dishwashing liquid is a good mold release
​I inserted wooden dowels in the plastic bat holes, and put grommets on them. ​For my 25 cm plastic bat, I used 500 ml of water, and as much plaster as water would hold, and poured it on the bat. ​
Picture
Picture
After half an hour, the clay wall can be taken off, and the plaster smoothed out with a metal ruler. The sides can be tidied up with a Sureform blade and green scouring pad.
Picture
​​In another half hour, plaster can be taken off the plastic bat, using a thin spatula. After removing the dowels, the rubber grommets stay safely embedded in the underside of the bat, so the whole thing can be attached to the wheel head pins, and reused many times without damaging the plaster. A thin rubber mat on the wheel head helps secure the bat

Links:
E-courses at TeachinArt
Art instructors at TeachinArt
Preview e-course
Demonstrations & tips
Tags:
​#potterywheel #wheelthrowing #wheelbats #teachinart #teachingpottery #ceramicschool #teachingpottery
2 Comments

Throwing, carving and altering porcelain

9/5/2019

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One of TeachinArt online teachers, Antoinette Badenhorst presented a hands-on workshop at the Pottery Studio in Bryanston South Africa where she demonstrated the carving and altering process of porcelain.

She calls porcelain the "Diva of clay" and tells her students that they have to understand the character of the clay to really push it to it's limits.
Picture
Wheel thrown porcelain bowl, carved and altered, and then spray painted with Antoinette's own glazes.
Here are some of the characteristics of porcelain.
  • When fired correctly, porcelain has a glass like or marble appearance.
  • Porcelain has a weak green strength and should therefore be handled with the utmost care before the firing process.
  • Porcelain becomes very pyro-plastic (soft because of the heat) at a high temperature. Any thinner parts will collapse when pulled down by the weight of the heavier or thicker parts. It will easily warp or slump during firing. Potters will often times create ways to support a porcelain piece during the firing process to prevent deformation or make sure that the construction is very evenly done and well designed.

Links:
Understanding porcelain e-course with Antoinette Badenhorst
Porcelain handbuilding online workshop with Antoinette Badenhorst
E-courses (online classes) at TeachinArt
Demonstrations, tips and techniques
Preview e-courses
Tags:
#teachinart #wheelthrowing #teachingartist #carvingporcelain #alteringporcelain #porcelainplatter #divaofclay #ceramicschool #clayshares
0 Comments

How to prevent S-cracks in pottery

8/16/2019

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​Most potters at some stage in their career have struggled with s-Cracks in the bottom of their pots, and have asked the question what did I do wrong or how did this happen. Antoinette Badenhorst shows her pottery students one of the biggest culprits for this clay problem.

Antoinette is an online instructor at TeachinArt and presents the Understanding Porcelain online class. She presented hands-on porcelain classes in South Africa, Canada, and several of countries is Europe, as well throughout the United states of America.
Picture
Potters can prevent most of the S-cracks in their work if they follow her advice and tips.

Links:
Understanding porcelain online class with Antoinette Badenhorst
Porcelain handbuilding with Antoinette Badenhorst
E-courses (online workshops) at TeachinArt
Preview e-courses at the online art school
Demonstrations, tips and techniques
Tags:
#potterycracks #fixingcracks# #teachingpottery #teachinart #clayfaults #faultsandremedies #porcelain #onlineschool #ceramicschool #clayshares
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  • Home
  • Online workshops
    • Understanding Porcelain
    • Handbuilding classes >
      • Porcelain handbuilding
      • Colored clay
      • Handbuilding Pottery For Beginners
    • Wheel thrown classes >
      • Porcelain Tips for Wheel Pottery
      • Take throwing to the next level
    • Teapot classes >
      • Pinching Teapots for Beginners
      • Faceted Teapot set
      • Wheel thrown teapots
    • Dinnerware classes >
      • Wheel thrown porcelain dinnerware
      • Handbuilding porcelain dinnerware
    • Glazing & Firing >
      • Shino glazing
      • Glazing made easy
      • Alternative firing
      • Glazing with Ron Roy
    • Painting on clay >
      • China painting
      • Post-fired finishes
    • All Artists Making A Living (AAMAL) >
      • Success stories
    • Woodworking classes >
      • Introduction to segmenting
    • Preview E-courses
  • Instructors
    • Antoinette Badenhorst
    • David Voorhees
    • Marcia Selsor
    • Connie Christensen
    • Nan Rothwell
    • Lynn Barnwell
    • Marie EvB Gibbons
    • Paul Lewing
    • Curtis Benzle
    • Robert Rundquist
    • Ron Roy
  • Registered students
  • Contact us
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