How to Throw VERY Tall Pottery - A TRICK YOU SHOULD KNOW!

Hi everybody, this is Anne. When I was first learning to throw clay on the wheel, I remember there being a huge learning curve. There were so many new and awkward skills to practice before I could even make a short cylinder. Once I started to feel a bit more comfortable, the next challenge was adding height to my cylinders. After so many years of practice, I thought I could pass on some of my best tips for throwing tall. As a bonus, I know this skill can be intimidating, so I thought I'd show you an alternative way to achieve height by attaching two thrown pieces together. For this project, it's important to start out with clay that's on the softer side. You should be able to easily push your fingers into the clay without a lot of force and without the clay breaking. I like to weigh out my clay. I've figured that about four and a half pounds of clay is the amount I can comfortably throw to get the height that I can control without the piece being way too heavy. Next I start to wedge it. The goal of wedging is to get good consistency with no stiff clay chunks and also to eliminate air bubbles. I like to start with spiral wedging, which seems to help with both of these issues. Then I switch to ram's head wedging. I really like to push those edges of the clay inward, then roll it over itself. This technique helps to shape the clay into a cylinder for easier centering when I'm throwing. You'll notice that the ends of the clay are not smooth. I like to use my thumbs to really flatten it out and get rid of any wrinkles and eliminate any air pockets. This will be the bottom of the piece, and now is the time when you can make it look really nice. Now on to the wheel. I added a little water to the middle of my bat so the clay wouldn't stick. Then I slammed the clay down as close to the middle of the bat as I could. I slammed the sides of my clay with the palms of my hand a few times to make sure I got a good connection to the bat. Next I want to center the clay. For this much clay, the hardest section to center is the foot, so I thought I'd start by running my finger around that bottom edge, which pushes that extra clay upward and centers the bottom. Next I put my hands around the clay and gently pushed them inward from that bottom ring that I made up to the top of the mound to smooth the clay for coning. Starting at the top third of the mound, I hooked one of my thumbs over to touch the other hand, then began to squeeze while also pulling the clay upward into a cone shape. You can see that top section not wobbling, which means that it's centering. I then started two thirds down the mound and again squeezed the clay upward all the way to the top. Finally, I began squeezing from the bottom ring and coned that all the way to the top. Okay, now I'm going to come back down. Once it's coned, I then worked the clay back down by using the bottom section of my palm, slanted downward, and the other hand supporting the back side. Just slowly push downward on top of itself. Notice I'm using my palm to push the sides of the clay downward to the very bottom. This way I avoid the clay expanding outward, thus creating that dreaded mushroom effect. Now when there's no more wobble, the clay is centered. Now I want to hollow out the inside. For this much clay, for me the easiest way to do this is to wet my whole hand and push my palm straight down into the center while steadying the clay with my other hand on the outside. Notice my hands are overlapping, which helps me keep them on center. I can only go so far down with my palm. As you can see from my needle tool, I still have to hollow out more of the clay for a quarter inch bottom. I decided to use my sponge for this to push more of the clay to the sides. I then used my fingers along the bottom to compress the clay, which will help keep the bottom from cracking as it dries. You can see that by displacing that extra clay, I created this little groove inside along the wall. I want a nice flat wall, so putting my hands on either side of the wall along the top section, I began to squeeze the clay with my outer hand inward and upward. I want to thin out that groove and create a bit of a cone shape. It's important to keep the clay in a slight cone shape right now to avoid collapse. I placed my fingers on either side of the wall for support and pushed down on the rim with my other finger to compress the rim and keep it from getting too thin as I pulled. To make my first pull, I used my sponge to push inward on the bottom of the mound to push some of the clay upward. I continued moving that clay upward while supporting it with my other hand on the inside. Remember I'm trying to keep the clay in a slight cone shape, so I'm aggressive in trying to keep that top section coned inward. I was having a little trouble getting that top section coned inward like I wanted. To get it back into control, I wet the clay with my sponge and I curled my fingers around the clay, pushed it inward, and back up into the cone shape. I repeated those same steps for the next pull. I used my damp sponge, working the clay from the bottom up to about one-third to the top. I can control the clay better with my fingers than the sponge, so I hooked my thumbs together and completed the pull with my fingers to the very top. As the clay gets taller, watch for bulges along the wall. If the clay starts to bulge outward, use your rib to compress it back, then continue the pull. I wanted the bottom a bit thinner, so I gently used my damp sponge to push inward along the bottom section and work it up, which actually adds a little more height to your piece, and it changes the shape from that cone shape to more of a cylinder. I then used my wooden rib to smooth out and compress the wall, starting at the bottom and slowly working my way to the top. On the inside, I cleaned out the excess water from the bottom. If you don't do this, the water will cause an S-crack. I want to smooth the inner wall. I'll use my red rib for that. I like to hold the rib by putting one finger in the center hole and supporting with another finger on the opposite side. Once in that position, I gently scrape the rounded side against the inner wall from the bottom to the top. Now for the shaping. I slowly work my rubber rib from the inside to the top of the pot, stretching the body of the cylinder outward to the shape that I want. I repeat this several times to get the volume I wanted without collapsing the piece. When I have the piece stretched out, again I compressed and smoothed out the outer walls. I used my needle tool to straighten out the rim. Now this is a nice vase, but I think it'd be fun to attach another section to it and make it even taller. To do this, I need to prepare the rim. I compressed the rim to make it thicker and wider to support the extra weight. I then used the blunt end of my needle tool along that inner edge to create a little ledge so the piece would fit into the bottom section like a lid. Finally, I used my calipers to measure the width. Next, I created the piece that I'll add to the top of that vase. This time, I wedged about a pound and a half of clay and repeated the steps to center this on the wheel. The only difference is that I hollowed out the piece all the way down to the bat to create a bottomless cylinder. I continued by pulling the walls upward and inward like before. I ripped the cylinder smooth, then measured the bottom, adjusting it to fit inside the calipers. I wired the piece off the bat straight across the bottom. I gently picked up the cylinder and placed it into the groove that I created on the rim of that vase. The clay from both pieces are wet and sticky, so I didn't need to score and slip them, I just made sure the top section was centered. I worked the clay along the rim of the bottom section over the foot of the top section to make a tight connection. I steadied this with my other hand on the inside. Once the two were stuck together, I used my red rib along the inside to stretch the walls outward and create one large piece. I was careful to wet the clay as I stretched it to avoid cracking the clay. I took my time to work the rim into the shape that I wanted. I used my damp sponge to wet the clay, then with my metal rib, I burnished and compressed the outer wall. There it is, measuring a nice 15 1⁄2 inches tall. Here's one I made earlier where I bellied out the middle more than coned in the top to create this lovely bottle shape. I'll probably let the clay dry a little, then add some ribbing to the top section of the thinner piece later, but I'm happy with these. Remember that throwing pieces with a lot of height comes with a lot of practice and really getting to know the capabilities and limitations of your clay. I'm still working on my skills, too. It can be very frustrating but rewarding if you stick with it. Thanks to the newest members of our Little Street Pottery Research Facility team. If you'd like to join the team and earn a title, click on the Super Thanks button or the link to buy me a coffee. It also really helps us out if you hit that like button and subscribe to our channel. See you next time in the studio.