Throwing a bowl.

Brief update. Not a whole lot of studio news from this weekend/last week. As mentioned before, my wife (Krystal) graduated on Friday with her Master's Degree (Yeah!), so we had family in town Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sun.

I took my mother to the studio with me and threw a couple demonstration pieces. She was a little trigger-happy on the camera, but it's kind of fun to have some step-by-step photos of the pieces coming together. It's a little hard to take those kinds of pictures by yourself. If this is step-by-step, then most of my shots are, at best, pictures of the landings on the stairway of the pottery. Ridiculous analogy.

Here's a few of the progress photos, with narration. This is about one quarter of the pictures taken during the throwing of this piece. And then there were pictures of other things as well. Seriously trigger-happy.

Centering. Working with abour 3 pounds here.

Opening.

Pulling - the process of moving clay mass from the bottom of the piece to the top. Or, pulling clay out of the bottom to add to the height.

More pulling.

More pulling, and starting to move it into more of a bowl shape.

After almost every pull, I level/compress the top rim of the piece. Doing this can re-center any minor warbles as the piece gets wider/taller, and it also makes sure the lip ends with a uniform thickness and is level - all very important things.

Using a wooden kidney-shaped rib inside, along with a flexible metal rib on the outside, to shape the bowl to a nice, smoth curve.

Chamoising the lip now that the bowl is done - same as leveling after every pull, plus the chamois is a great tool for shaping lips and rims. Adds definition and shape while compressing/toning the clay. I feel like I'm advertising a home gym - "Adds definition and shape while toning!"

Undercutting the foot of the bowl. This will make it easier to cut off the bat with my wire tool, plus creates an evenly round starting point for the future trimming of the foot.

Voila, un bol!

Lastly, here's me showing off a large, bisqued bowl, followed by a shot of me decorating a vase. No, this bowl is not the one that you just witnessed me throwing above. Just in case anyone was going to ask.