Diana Ryan- Teaching Artist Extraordinaire!: MUD: Pottery Wheel Throwing Class for Kids!

Monday, March 4, 2013

MUD: Pottery Wheel Throwing Class for Kids!

MUD Workshop! In this 8 week class students learned the fundamentals of wheel throwing and made their own mugs, bowls, lidded vessels, even teapots! Session 2 of Mud starts Tuesday, March 5th from 4-5:30pm at the Corvallis Arts Center, there is still room! Register here!

Here are some photos from the winter session of MUD class!

The basics: How to make a pot on the pottery wheel with photo demonstrations by young potter Zeke!

Step 1: lightly dampen the surface of the bat (board attached to wheel by metal pins). You don't want a puddle of water, just some moisture to get the clay to stick!

Step 2: Place clay in the middle of the wheel and pat it down several times so that it sticks.

Step 3: Centering- With wet hands cup both hands around the clay with thumbs close together or touching. Lock your arms on the splash pan and lean in, bending from the waist and push slowly toward the center with both hands.

Step 3: Place thumbs together and slowly press in the middle of the clay to make a hole, this is called dropping in. Make sure your thumbs are are stiff and pressed together otherwise you wont be pressing down in the center. Your hole should go down until you have about 1/2-1/4 inch of clay remaining on the bottom.

Step 4: Put your hands inside the hole and make it bigger by slowly pulling towards you with your fingertips. Stop pulling when the wall is about 3/4 inch thick.

Step 5: Form side walls by pulling up the clay. With one hand in the inside and one hand on the outside very slowly and gently begin squeezing the clay between your inside fingertips and outside fingertips and pulling up. (Repeat this step until the wall is between 1/2inch and 1/4inch thick).