My pottery room

I picked up pottery again, after stopping for about three years... back in the days in the pottery room in CFA, we did mostly handbuilding and a little bit of slabbing... it was fun and therapeutic...

This is the pottery room that I go to these days. It is at Morton Community Centre, just 15 minutes away from home by bus...


I have attended two lessons so far. We started off by learning wedging (which is to "knead" the clay in a particular way in order to get rid of the air bubbles, and to align the clay particles in an orderly manner so that they will be more cooperative when we put them on the wheel)

And then we had to center the clay on the wheel, which is much, much harder than it seems! After just doing two hours of centering, my arms ached from Thursday to Sunday... and for some funny reason, my legs were aching too...

I went back on Monday to try centering again, and after three hours and half a bag of clay, I was still not very successful... but I did manage to throw a mug... not a perfect one, coz the walls were thicker on one side, but it was the best I could do, for now...

I had a little bit more luck on slabbing... and here are the two items that I have created:





As you can see, the edges are not very even... I still need some more practice!!! And they look brown and boring now coz the work is not complete. After the clay is dry, we need to bisque fire it, then glaze it, then fire it again... So my plates won't be ready till next week...

I hope I have better luck at the wheel at class tomorrow! Running out of clay soon...