A Pottery Adventure

I was a bit stuck over what to write about this week. I've not touched anything bead or jewellery related for a while, so I thought I'd share some of what I've been up to while not making beads. About 3 years ago, I acquired a pottery wheel. Every so often I would sit down and have a go and when beautiful pots didn't appear before my eyes I would put a board on it and it would go back to being a table.

My wheel

Here it is looking unusually clean! Can't say the same for the surrounding area... I'm a messy worker!

It's been a dream of mine since I was young to have a wheel, but each time I sat down, I got the feeling that the time wasn't right and I'd give up and pack it up again. A couple of weeks ago, I moved it to the other side of the shed where it was a bit more accessible and tried again... something clicked and I managed to make a few things I was nearly happy with.

Wedged clay ready for throwing

Throwing the clay down

Centering

Opening up to create the base

Lifting the walls

Tidying up

Cut off the wheel

I'm not quite up to making a matching set yet, but I like different!

Drying overnight so they're ready to trim

It's great to finally feel like I'm getting somewhere!

So with my new found confidence, I decided to try out some mugs. I've been mad for carving recently, (it all started with Lindsay's Eye challenge when I made Egyptian eye cabochons) and wanted to try the technique out on a larger scale. So after trimming my pots, I carved the design on to them and pulled some handles.

Action Shot - Trimming the foot

Scoring the design

Carved and smoothed

Extruded sausages ready to pull handles

Curving the handles

This is the first one drying out ready for a bisque firing.

Waiting to fire. 

Still a bit wobbly, but getting closer to looking just like a real one!

I'll be working on the rest of them this week... hopefully I won't mess them up in the glaze firing!