5. Wheel Throwing Planter - How to Throw a Roller Textured Planter Pot

Welcome. I hope you're doing well. In this video, I will show you some tips and tricks for how I make planters or flower pots, if you like. I started doing flower pots or planters just a few weeks ago. I haven't done them before, but one of my really good friends suggested that I should make some. She really likes my designs and she has a couple of bowls and vases and I was like, well, that can't be so hard. And it's actually a good idea. I need some for my own home. And I know other customers may want them. So I thought that must be quite easy. I mean, usually I make vases with complex forms and narrow necks and stuff. So I thought, well, doing a planter, that can't be that difficult. I was wrong. Of course, because like anything else in life, the first time you do it, it's more difficult than maybe my naive personality thought it would be. But of course, I worked it out. And in this video, I'm going to show you some of the ideas that I developed and we will make one pot today. I'll probably make some more in a future video. Just like my other pots, I don't like it to be too simple, too straight. I like to have textured sides on my pot. Either I roll them or I crackle them or use different techniques for that. Today, we're going to use a roller. I picked up this one from one of those, I don't know, in America, I think you call them one dollar shops. Very cheap. I think you can also get things like this on Wish.com or eBay, Alibaba, Amazon, probably. Very cheap. This one I like because they have like this sort of a flower pattern that I think will work right for a planter. So we're going to use that. I'm going to start throwing a cylinder, as we usually do when we throw things. And then I'm going to roll this to the cylinder and expand it. But, rolling onto the cylinder, you need some support. Because otherwise, it's just going to go completely uneven. So for that, you need some sort of support. What I found out is that the best way to do that is to use some sort of tube that fits into your cylinder. I tried different kinds. I'm just looking around to find, yep, different ones. And I came up with this. This is like, I think, something you use for sewer or some plumbing or something. I bought it in a hardware store. Very inexpensive. And you can get different sizes. I have a longer one here for my larger pots. You can also use like a cardboard cylinder. The ones you use when you send a poster with mail or something. But, you know, cardboard and water doesn't go so well. So they tend to wear out too fast, I think. These ones, they last forever. And again, they're very inexpensive. In order to get it out of your cylinder again, you need to have it wrapped up in something. I usually use newspaper. And I use two layers of it. I will show you when we take it out why I do that. So let's wrap this up. I use two pieces of newspaper. Like a full sheet that I just torn apart in two pieces. And then I roll it around my cylinder here. I like to do it over like an edge. Because this one has this kind of extended part to it. And it makes it easier to roll. Also, when you roll it, you got to make sure always that you leave some paper in the bottom. So it needs to be longer here. And you need to leave some of the tube at the top. So you can grab it and take it out. So let's roll the first layer. So in order for it to not unwind, you can take a little bit of slip or just a little bit of water or something. And that will be enough to kind of glue it together like this. That's usually enough. And then you wrap in the bottom of it. So. Now we have the tube wrapped up in the first layer. Now we need the second layer. And you basically do exactly the same. I like to do this before I start throwing. Because otherwise I have to clean everything up and prepare that. It's easier to do it now before you start. And then it can sit here and kind of rest before we need to use it. So let's move on with throwing the pot. There are basically two types of pots, flower pots or planters, that you can make. One of them have a hole in the bottom. That's the ones where you put soil inside and you plant the plant in the pot. When you do that, the water needs to be able to get out. Otherwise, it will rotten in the bottom. So for that kind of pot, you make a hole in the bottom. But you also need some sort of a tray or plate or something to put under it. Otherwise, that water is gonna splash all over your table. The other kind of pot is a closed pot, which is actually one you use just to hide another pot. When you buy a pot, you usually get it in some sort of an ugly plastic pot. You know, something like this. But then if you have a flower pot or a planter like this, it's actually not made for it. But it works okay. Then you can take this and put it inside and it will cover up that ugly plastic pot. And it will just, you know, look nicer. Of course, there's also a third variation and that's the hanging pots. I have actually one right here behind me somewhere. That one up there. Well, you actually can't see the pot anymore because I've been so successful with my green fingers and growing the plant. But anyway, you get the point. For those kind of pots, it's a closed pot. But you also need some sort of system for hanging it. Typically, you would make three or four holes. So you put some strings in and you can hang it. There's also another variation. I'm not gonna cover all of these in this video. I will probably make some more videos about planters. The third one is also the one with the hole-in-button. But instead of having a loose tray, you actually build in the tray into the pot. So it becomes one. I'll show you that in the next video maybe or one of the next videos. Anyway, let's get on with it and throw this pot. I always use a bat. I just like the convenience of being able to take off my pot. In a future video, I will talk a little more about the kind of bats that I like and how I create my own bats. Which is much, much cheaper than buying the commercial ones. Once I have my clay ball on the bat, I always start out by kind of centering it a little bit manually. It's just, you know, convenient. It makes it a little more easier when I center the clay ball. This ball is about five, six pounds or something. I think a little under three kilo. You need a little more clay to make these planters than for a pot at the same size, because I'm gonna do the roller texture. And also you have to leave a little more at the bottom that I will eventually trim out. But to begin with, I need to have a little more. So first part, we're gonna throw a cylinder. The only tricky part about this, hold on a second, is that you need to make sure that the cylinder will fit this cylinder. You have to make it just a little bit larger, so it can slide in without moving the clay around. But also not too big, because then you have to cover in the cylinder too much. So let's get on with it. As always, when you're centering a relatively big clay ball, you don't have to be so concerned about centering the whole piece. You have to be focused on centering the outer part of it. Once the outer part of it is centered, everything will be centered. Okay, I think that's good. Next step, we will open the ball. I'm gonna leave a little more thickness at the bottom of this planter, because I want to trim out a rim at the bottom. So I'm just leaving maybe one and a half, maybe a little more centimeters. And make sure that you compress the bottom more than you think, because the more it's compressed, the less likely it is that it will make S-cracks, when it dries and when it's fine. Okay. Now we're almost ready to pull it up and color it in a bit. You can see now, of course, that this is way, way, way too big. I always make it a little bit bigger when I make a hole. It's easier to form the bottom and make it really nice. Once that's done, it's time to kind of form it and make it about this size. A little bigger, as I said. You've got to make sure that you get enough clay from the bottom up and use it throughout the pot. Otherwise, it's just gonna be wasted down there. It's gonna be too thick anyway. There's so many ways to pull a cylinder. Some people use their knuckles. Some people use fingers. Some people use a reversed way, with their thumbs. And I found that, maybe a bit... I don't know. But I found that, for me, it works really well when I stand up doing most of it. Also, it makes it easier for me to put my arms straight into the pot, when I'm doing very large ones. And always remember to kind of make it like a pyramid or cone. You don't want it to get too wide. It's always easier to widen it, especially in the top, than it is to make it narrow. Now, one of the tricky parts about doing any kind of pot, really, where you use textures and extend from the inside, is that, before you actually finish a pot, you need to decide how big it's gonna be. And you need to decide how much you want to extend the walls. You always need to make them a little bit thicker than what you would normally do for a pot. Because it's gonna be thinner when you extend it. But how much? Well, it's a question of experience, really. For this one, I think we can make it a little bit thinner. Also, when using this tube, you need to make sure, of course, that the height of your cylinder is not higher than the paper. Actually, it should be a little lower than the paper. So, we can still extend it a little more. Ah! I think we need to do one last pull. Another tricky part about doing these planters is that, usually, if I do a pot like the other one I showed you, with the flower, it would usually go out like this. So, I would extend also from the bottom and I would use that thickness of the clay there. But in this case, with a planter, I want it to go more sort of like this. So, you're not going to extend much at the bottom. This is basically the size you're going to be left with. And so, you want to use up as much of that clay as possible. On the other hand, if you use up too much clay and it's going to be too heavy up here, it's just going to fall apart. So, you have to leave a little more clay here than what you want to end up with. But you can take care of that even before it's dried. I will show you that in the end of this video. And now you see, it fits almost. It needs to be a little bigger, but not much. Another thing you have to be aware of is to make sure that the thickness of the wall is as equal as possible. Okay. So, now we are ready to put in the tube. Well, that is, we are almost ready. Because, first of all, I like to clean up a little bit. I made more of a mess this time than I usually do. I try to keep it as clean as possible, but it doesn't always succeed with that. Okay. Before we can actually put the tube in, it needs to be pretty dry on the inside. If it's too wet, the paper is going to stick and you're not going to get it off. Now, of course, if some paper is left in there, it's not terrible. It's going to burn off in the brick fire. But I like to get as much of it out, preferably all of it out, before I move on with expanding. So, I'm going to use my blow dryer to dry it a little bit inside. But always, always remember when you blow dry clay, you need to use a mask. Because when you do that, small particles of clay is going to go into the air and it's going to go down into your lungs. That's very bad for you. So, I'm going to put on the mask and I'm ready for blow drying. How much you're going to dry depends on how wet you throw the pot. I usually give it like one or two minutes. But again, it depends very much on how dry or how wet the inside of your pot is. You want it to be not too sticky. But, of course, you don't want it to be leather hard or anything like that. Because then you won't be able to shape the pot. So, just enough not to be sticky. Now, we're ready to put in the cylinder, like this. Make sure it kind of sits in the middle. Now, we're ready to color in the cylinder. So, it is close to the plastic cylinder. Because we need to roll on. So, we don't need any space between the clay and the plastic cylinder. When you do that, I found out the best way to do it is to take it in sections. Because once you reach the top, you close it off. And then the air from the bottom won't be able to get out. So, start with the bottom and get that fixed and then slowly move up. Of course, after you dry it, it may be a little bit too dry to actually do anything. So, make sure you have it wetted all over. I think that's good. Now, before you roll it, there's a couple of things you need to do. First of all, as I mentioned, we have a little bit too much clay down here. We want to get rid of some of that. And also, you want the sides to be as smooth as possible. Because that's going to leave the most beautiful imprint from rolling. So, for that, I'm going to use my wooden, actually plastic tool, rip. It's sometimes a good help to hold on to the top of your cylinder. So, it doesn't kind of go out of sintering. Now, there's still a little bit too much clay down here. So, in order to get rid of that, I'm going to use my loop tool, my trimming tool. And take some of it off already. But don't take off too much. Because then, in the next phase, it's going to collapse for you. Also, when you're trimming wet clay, make sure that you grab it right away. Because if the wet clay sticks to your pot, it's really difficult to get it off. Now, all the clay that I'm taking off here is... I mean, of course, it's wet. It's ready. You can just wet it up and use it again. So, there's no reason to put it through recycling and all that. Now, that looks much better. And as you can see, it was actually quite a big lump that I got off. That, you don't have to trim at a later point. Before we start rolling things on, I like to do a little bit of the final smoothing. And for that, I use... Now, I just have to find the right one here. I use a... I use a metal rib. That will make it totally smooth. And as I said, the more clean and more smooth it can be, the better imprint the roller is going to leave. So, that's it. Now, it looks nice and clean. And I will just wash my hands a little bit. Now, depending on what kind of roller you have, you may need to leave it wet or dry. For these ones in plastic, I found that you don't actually need to make them wet. If it's a wooden one and it's wet clay, I usually find that you need to wet them a little bit. But for this, it's good to use just dry on wet. Now, once you start rolling it, you've got to hold on to the tube, so it doesn't bend over and shake. Also, I suggest that you roll it in a 45 degree angle. That way, it's easiest to keep a consistent pressure all the way up, so you get the same thickness of marking. Also, you should actually apply quite a lot of pressure. At least, I want to have kind of a strong texture on it. So, let's go on with that. I'm going to leave a couple of centimeters up here. We're going to use that for the rim. And I'm going to show you how we're going to make this nice and thick rim and do some texture with that as well. That's it. Now, we have to take the tube out. And to begin with, the first part of the tube is very easy. And now, you can see why I have two layers of paper, because one layer is going to go out with the tube. So, that was the easy part. The other part can be a little bit tricky, because you want to get this paper out without leaving too much of it into it. What I found is that if you kind of curl it around the edges like this, try and make it loose at the top. And you try and loosen it up here. And you then throw it around to make it a little bit stronger. Then, look at this. I got everything out in one piece. When you try this, it's probably going to fail the first many times. It did for me anyway. But keeping it dry when you put it in, having the two layers of paper, that's the trick that makes it. So, now we are ready to extend. First, I like to recenter a little bit, because it can go out of centering just a little bit when we start doing this. And of course, now, before you can start doing any expansion, you need to wet it on the inside, because now it's very dry. Also, another thing is you have to be very careful when you do this. Don't do it too fast. Don't try and extend it too much at one time. And also, of course, from now on, you can't touch it on the outside. It's going to smear up the patterns. You want to leave them strong and sharp and intact. So, first, we're going to do a little bit of wetting inside. Don't worry too much about getting water at the bottom, because it's going to be opened up anyway. So, it's very easy to get rid of that water later. And now, it's just a question of slowly applying some pressure from the inside. I kind of find that the first two moves, it actually doesn't do much. It's like the clay won't play or something, but after a couple of times, it slowly gets more elastic and you can start moving. You can also go both up and down. And now, for the planter, as I said earlier on, we don't actually want the bottom to be much more extended. So, we're going to leave that. We're going to have this kind of a V-shape when it's finally done, sort of. Also, another thing, of course, you can't see now that it's inside here, but you don't want to use your fingers, because if you use your fingers, they're going to leave very strong marks inside and make it thinner where your fingers are. And with the crackles or the patterns you have here, it's easily going to be too thin and then it's going to break through. So, basically, I use as much of the side of my hand as I possibly can, either with this water or without the water, or with the sponge or without the sponge. And of course, as always, when you're throwing pots, you're going quite extreme here if I don't have a camera from the outside, but I actually push in the clay quite a lot. So, when you do that, you've got to be very careful that you let loose of the clay very slowly. Otherwise, it's going to go out of center. Sorry, that was my phone. I have a certain type of pot in mind. So, to make sure that the size is correct, I measure it on the way. The one I need is about 14 centimeters. Now, keep in mind, of course, that the clay is going to get smaller once it dries. So, I'm probably going to do it like 16 or something. It's about 15 now. So, I think another centimeter would be nice. Yeah, now it's about 16 centimeters, which I think is perfect for my use. Now, in the beginning, I was talking about that I like to have a thick rim that I can then make some marks on. But as you see, this is actually not very thick. It's the same thickness as the rest of the pot, which is a nice thickness now. I found that it's very difficult to make these kind of extractions dealing with a very thick rim to begin with. That's too much clay to pull out and pull out. Because it needs to be very thick when you expand it like this to leave it thick enough to make the textured rim. So, what I found is that it's actually easier to leave it a little bit thinner. And then, when you're at this stage, I will extend it a little bit and I will fold it over. I don't know if you're familiar with this technique, but you basically fold over the side of it and tuck it in. And then you will have this double-sized, double-thickness rim. I'll show you how you do that. First of all, I need to clean it up a little bit so I have a sharp edge here. I need some water on the inside. Okay, so now we have a little more than double thickness of the rim here. What I'm going to do now is just I'm going to round it off a little bit, shaping it a little bit from the bottom, pushing it out just a little bit, and just making it a little more round. So, I think that looks good. Now, it's time to dry it up on the inside. As I said, we dripped a lot of water in here, so there's actually a small leak in here. It's very important that you get all the water out of your pot before you dry it completely and before, of course, you brisk fry it. Otherwise, it will make cracks. So, keep it dry and it's going to make a little bit more smoke in there. Okay, the last part before we do the edge is the foot. I usually like to make the foot doing trimming, but in this case, I actually like to make an outward foot. And for that, I mean, you could use it just using a rib. I got this nice little foot trimmer tool that you can use. It makes it very easy. So, something like that. I hope you can see it. I also like to use the other end, the sharp end, and just, you know, making sure that there's at least a small indent here. So, I think that looks good. So, now for the last part is the rim. There's all kinds of decorations you can make on a rim like this. For this particular one, I want to do some sort of roping. And in order to do that, it actually needs to be not leather hard, but a little drier than this. You could wait until the next day to do it. I'm too impatient to do that. So, again, I'm going to use my blower and just dry it off a little bit. Now, as I said, you don't want it to be too dry. If it's too leather hard, you won't be able to actually make an impression on the rim. On the other hand, you don't want it to be tacky at all. So, this, you know, this is not sticky, which is perfect. So, to do the roping effect, I'm going to use this... Where do I keep it? To do the roping effect, I'm going to use this piece of round wood. Very inexpensive tool. Again, I like inexpensive tools. So, we're going to use this. And basically, I'm going to go all the way around, turning it up, turning it up side by side. You're going to hold on to the inside with kind of damp fingers. They don't need to be completely wet, but you don't want them to stick to the side either. And we're just going to go that way all the way around. It does take a little bit of practice to get an even pattern. You want to make sure that the angle you use is the same all the way around. And, of course, the pressure you apply and how far you're going to pull it. So, basically, make it as even as possible. At least, that's what I think looks the best. So, the last thing I want to do is, because I used the pressure from the inside, I left a lot of finger marks in here. And I just like to even that out just a little bit. So, I'm just going to use a sponge. So, that's it. The pot is ready. And I think it actually turned out pretty well. You can see it here. I don't know how much you can see. It's getting a little bit dark now. But this is the roped rim, the footer. And I like this pattern, especially for a plant like this. So, that's all I had for today. Thank you very much. Remember to subscribe if you want to be updated with new videos. I have a lot of them coming up. Some about texturing and some about doing different kind of interesting shapes and stuff. So, please subscribe to my channel and you will get updated about future videos. Thank you very much.