How To Throw A Wide Shallow Bowl

Hey everybody, welcome back to Matthew Kelly Pottery. I hope you are doing well. My plan today is to talk about making wide shallow bowls. I'm going to do that with this four pounds of clay that I have for the bowl that I'm going to make for today's video. And the reason I want to talk about that is that I think most of us would agree that there's no one right way to do anything. There's no one right way to make any certain pot. There's no one right way to probably do anything in this world. But we probably all would agree also that there are easier and better ways to do things. And not that I think I have all the answers, but I think I have some knowledge from my experience of throwing hundreds and hundreds of wide shallow bowls of some tips and things that would make it easier for you to make wide shallow bowls if you're interested in that. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Part of the reason that I'm thinking about this and wanting to talk about this today is because I've seen videos over the years and especially even lately, I've seen some videos of people making wide shallow bowls, but they start with a tall cylinder that's not very wide. And then they stretch that cylinder out from the inside with a rib and then make a really wide shallow bowl from a tall skinnier cylinder. And I think I don't think that's the best way to do that. Although that shows amazing skill and talent to be able to do that, I think there is an easier better way to accomplish that wide shallow bowl without starting with a tall not so wide cylinder and then stretching that way out. So that's what we're working on today. Like I said, this is four pounds of clay. This is going to be for my wood fired salt glaze kiln and I'm going to make one of my peacock platter bowls out of this. instead of opening up a small opening in the center, what I like to do is open it up kind of like I would for a plate. And I use the heel of my hand to push down in the center, which I think probably serves a couple of purposes. Number one, it compresses the inside, the bottom of the bowl pretty well because I'm pushing in a large area with the heel of my hand. Also, what I can do with that is kind of work on creating that bowl shape on the inside rather than going down with my fingertips and then pulling straight out, making a flat wide bottom. I want a nice curved inside bottom to the bowl. So I'm going to push down with the heel of my hand. It might be a little tricky if you've never done that before. Also, just paying attention to how deep you're going. You don't want to push down too far, obviously, and push all the way through. And then as I pull out with the heel of my hand, I kind of lift my hand up so that I'm getting that gradual curve coming out from the center towards the outside of the bowl or the outside of the bottom of the bowl. Okay, so now that I have this bowl shape on the inside, what I want to do now is I need to undercut here so I can start pulling on this clay, but I don't want to bring that way back in. I just want to undercut that so that I can get a spot, get my hand underneath to start pulling. And I'm hoping with the two angles that I have here with my two cameras that you'll be able to see what I'm working on here. But I'm undercutting underneath that rim, and you can see here I'm using basically the fingertips of mainly my ring finger and pinky on each hand, but then the middle finger kind of comes into play as well. And I've got my thumbs both curled over on the inside to stabilize that as I do it. It's giving myself a place to start pulling from. Now I'm going to go underneath that lip and I'm going to start pulling. And I'm going to, just like if I was pulling straight up, except I'm going to be grabbing clay from the sides here like this. And as I pinch together and pull, I'm just going to pull back at like a 45 degree angle. Instead of trying to pull up, I'm going to pull out, which number one, I think is a little bit easier because you have the force of the wheel going around that you're working with, as well as then after your walls are pulled, you don't have as far to go out. The clay, especially on the rim, won't get stretched as thin as it would if you had a tall, skinnier cylinder and then stretched it out much wider. So I'm going to add water just like I would for any pull. I'm going to use, like I said, kind of like my middle finger and my ring finger on each hand. The outside hand, I kind of dig up underneath and I really get in there and I push in to kind of grab a nice bit of clay there. And then as I have that nice roll there, and then I'm going to start pinching together and pulling, like I said, kind of at that 45 degree angle. Now I'm not trying to pull a ton of clay right there, just trying to get that clay moving in the right direction and also kind of even out that big thick ring that was there. Okay, for the next pull, I'm going to go back to that same spot. I'm going to dig in a little bit more with that outside hand. And then once I get that nice groove pinched together and then pull up at that, might not be a 45 degree angle, but pull up up and out instead of up and in towards the center of the wheel. Now, like I said, if I was making a vase or anything tall, this would be a horrible way to start. But since I'm already have in mind that I'm making a wide, shallow bowl, I'm working in the direction to make it easier for the rest of the process. I don't like to leave too much water in the center as I'm doing this, because the more water you add to the clay in general, it's going to soak into the walls and the more you leave here, that's going to soak in and might create a weak spot near that bottom of the curve of the bowl. All right, so now you can see I've got a really good thickness still here on this rim. That's probably, you know, that's close to, you know, three eighths inch thick right there. And it probably about the same all the way down. So now my pretty much probably my last pull, I'm going to go back down to the bottom and grab another roll of clay. And I'm just going to now do kind of more of an aggressive pull. They were all been pretty aggressive so far, but I'm going to pull all the way to that rim and kind of even try to even all that out from the base. It's a little bit thicker at the base and it always will be, but I'm gonna pull all the way through here. Like I said, working at that angle that I want, because I'm going to push this down even more than angle I have, but already in that going in that direction, it's going to make it easier for the rest of the process. And I don't try to put a curve on this while I pull it. I'm just trying to pull kind of like a straight, a straight wall, even though it's at an angle, I'm pulling kind of a straight wall because then the pot has some structural integrity to hold those walls at that angle. If I went ahead and started curving this, it would give me trouble. So by having that at a straight, kind of at a diagonal, but straight, it has some structural integrity. All right. Now, before I go and lay down this wall anymore, what I want to do is go ahead and use this extra clay that's here at the base to form the foot. So basically at the bottom, I have a little bit of clay that curves down around like this on the, on the, on the bat. That's from pushing in my fingers and then grabbing that clay and pulling. Now, instead of cutting that clay away, I use that to actually form the foot. I'm actually going to push in with my rib and my right hand, and I'm going to kind of like use my index finger, my thumb on my left hand to kind of round that off as this digs underneath and then kind of rolls that clay up. And it's going to form the foot that I'm going to have at the base of the bowl here. I usually call these platter bowls because they're kind of like a halfway between a bowl and a platter. So you can see there now I've, I've pushed that clay back in and formed a foot. And now what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this rib and I'm going to go back right on top of that foot and push in. And I'm going to use the 90 degree angle on this rib to make a separation between the foot and where the walls begin. And also I like to dig in right there a little bit because that's where, if I, if I am going to wire these to hang on the wall, that little gallery there is a great place to put that wire. And now I'm going to clean off any excess water around that foot and off the bat because I won't be able to get back under there very easily after I lay this down some more. So if this is as wide as and shallow as you want it to go, you're already there. But if you want to go wider and more shallow, then this is where another video I made comes into play, where I did a video called throwing in reverse, where I'm now going to take and throw, add some water to the outside so that this hand, I'm then going to switch sides. I'm going to reverse the wheel and switch sides. So I'll be thrown on this side, but my dominant, my right hand will be on the inside shaping with one of my mud tools ribs. And this, my left hand will be on the outside giving support. And that's why I'm going to go ahead and add water to the outside with my sponge. Just kind of adding that water from the top down, feeling with my left hand here to make sure I've got a smooth kind of coating of water all the way down. All right, now I'm going to reverse the wheel, clean off my rib a little bit here. This was awkward when I first tried this, but it's become very comfortable to shape this way. And I like to start out at the rim and then push back down towards the bottom. So I'm going to start out here at the rim. And then as I have pushed down there, then I'm, I'm supporting it on the outside with my left hand, pushing down towards that bottom with my right, using the curved side of the rib, as you can see here. And I want to clean that excess clay off the rib. All right, so now I've got even more of a nice curve on the inside there, but now I want to do that even more. So I like to, like I said, start out here at the rim and push out and then down. And because I'd already started throwing in that direction, I have, haven't had to push nearly as far as if I had a taller, skinnier cylinder to start with. So there's that. That's, and now I'm going to put the wheel back in normal direction for me. I'm going to wet the inside and outside of the rim here so that I can lay that over, because I like to do kind of like a flat rim, especially if I'm going to carve a design into the rim. I'm going to go back to my wood rib. I'm going to support it underneath with my left hand here. And then I'm going to use the rib on top and lay that over just like that. Then I usually like to come back just inside that with the mud tools rib again, still supporting it on the outside with my left hand, but now just working in front of me instead of to the left of me here. And then finally come back, add a little bit of water to the center, put my swirl in the bottom, which I love to do, and then clean off any excess water off of the hole inside, off of the rim. And then I could either torch this and then do some carving on rim or I could just let it stiffen up over time and then come back and do any of my carving or altering by flutes and such on the rim. So like I said, I wanted to share this with you today. Not that this is the only way or the best way to do this, but I thought it was easier in some ways to accomplish a wide shallow bowl by showing you those tips of pulling wide to begin with instead of pulling up and then going out with the rib. So I hope this helps and if you give it a shot and it works well, I'd love to hear about it. I'd love to see your pots. Send me a message on either YouTube, Instagram, anywhere you can. But anyway, like I said, I hope this helps. Thank you for all your support on all my social media and we'll see you soon. Thanks. Bye.