Throwing A Faceted Bowl

Hey everybody, welcome back to Matthew Kelley Pottery. I hope you are doing well. You may be here today because of this reel or this short, whether you've seen it on YouTube or Instagram, and you may not have seen it yet, and if you want to see either the short or the reel, they're the same video with just different music on each platform. Both links are down in the description of this video, but this video today is to show you how I made that piece, or how I made a piece very similar to that. This is the actual piece that we're making in today's video, and I'm going to describe the process of how I throw this, how I carve the facets in, and then stretching it out to get this design. The piece in the reel is actually this bowl over here, which is, like I said, just about the same, very similar. So it's not the exact same one that you see in the reel. The lighting in it is quite a bit different than the lighting for one today, so that you all can see what I'm talking about while I'm doing it. Also, just to describe the process of how I go through this, in case you would like to make one very similar, you know what we're doing today, so now, let's go! Here I have two and a half pounds of clay, which is a bit more than I would normally use for a bowl the size that is in today's video. But I need the extra clay, because as I carve the facets and stretch out the clay from the skinny thick cylinder that I will make, I need that extra amount of clay in order to get a bowl this size with the carved facets and then stretching it out. So everything else leading up to the point that I start to pull the walls of this is all the same that you would normally do for any pot. I'm going to center it. When I open the clay ball, I leave a little bit more clay in the base, because I have in mind that I'm going to carve a foot on these, which I ended up doing with all the bowls and cups that I made this size. I did end up carving a foot on them. The bowls that I showed you at the beginning of this video, I carved a foot as well as carved the inside of that foot. I didn't just trim the outside, so I did leave some extra clay in the base of these. As I went down towards the bow, I left some extra clay in the center, so that I could carve that out as well. Everything else, like I said, has been done the same up to this point. You'll see here that I'll start to undercut this thrown and open cylinder, where I can then come back and do one of my claw pulls. I do that with my left hand. I do my thumb on the outside and the rest of my fingers on the inside, so I pinch together and pull up and towards the center of the wheel, so that I can get this cone or beehive shape that you see here. From here, I'm going to clean off around the base, clean out the water on the inside, and then do a sort of pull, where I'm just going to push in on the outside with both of my hands, just trying to make a taller, skinnier cylinder that's still thick. I'm not trying to get any thinner in the top half of what I've already pulled here, but I do want to get some of that extra clay out of the bottom. What I'm going to do is clean off the spot to start pulling from here, reach on the inside, and then squeeze together. I'm not going to do a full pull, but what I'm doing is just forcing some of that clay that's at the base there to start moving upward. I'm going to add water to the outside and do another pull, just like I did earlier, where I'm just going to squeeze in from the outside, squeeze in at the base, and then move my hands upward in order to make a taller, skinnier cylinder without making it much thinner. The whole plan was to make a tall, skinny cylinder that still has some thickness to it. I want the walls to be fairly straight up and down, so that as I do the carving, that's a whole lot easier to do with a straight wall rather than one that curves in and out. You'll see here I'm taking my rib to clean off some extra clay around the bottom as well as to thin up that spot where every pot I think that's ever been made has extra thickness there at the base, unless you can carve that away. Now I'm using the straight side of the rib to give me a nice, smooth surface on the outside of that cylinder. Now I'm just evening up the top a little bit, and then I'm going to sponge off the outside and then start doing the carving, start making the facets. Here is the Kemper tool that I use to carve the facets in this cylinder. This tool has a squared loop tool on one end and then the round loop tool on the other. I've worn the numbers off this one, but by looking it up online, I believe the number is KSP4, but I'm sure any pottery supply store has one of these. I like using the round loop tool side because of how big the circle is. It gives me a nice wide facet and it doesn't go too deep. If you use too small of a loop tool, you'll either get really skinny facets or you'll carve too deep trying to get a wider facet. I have ran into trouble doing that by carving too deep and then as I push out the belly of the bowl or the vase or whatever I'm making and pushing too far and putting a hole in the side of it, and that's no fun. Here as you can see, I'm just carving facets going from the bottom to the top, trying to keep my hands as straight as possible so I can carve straight up and down. It's not, like I said, it's never going to be perfect. I don't have to go straight up and down, but just to add to the effect of it if I can get my carving straight up and down and as I stretch out the clay, they start to curve to the side. That's where I get that effect from. You can see I'm carving from the bottom to the top and then I'm actually stopping the carving probably a good half inch from the rim. I learned that the hard way as well. If you carve all the way through the rim, then as you stretch out the clay, especially if you're making a bowl where you're widening out the top as the widest part of the cylinder when you're finished, then as you stretch out a carved section at the very rim, then you get a very uneven top, which is not always a bad thing, but if you stretch it too far, then that will start to rip or tear and that doesn't really bode well for a finished piece. I've also tried carving with wires, a string from my guitar, all kinds of things that you can carve with. This just ended up being one of my favorite tools to carve with for the result that I get out of it. You can see here when I got towards the end of the run all the way around the cylinder, I had a space that was a little bit too wide for one facet and a little bit too small for two facets, but I decided to put two facets instead of one. As you can see, each time that I would carve a facet, I would try to clean out the loop tool a little bit and collect that excess clay in my left hand. Here I'm going to take my sponge and just clean off those pie points where I've carved the facets to get rid of any of the burrs that are on those. I'm not really trying to smooth up, smooth the whole facet, just trying to get any burrs or rough spots off of those high points and then from this point after I finish doing this, I'll start to bellow it out or stretch out the clay from the inside. Here I'm adding water to the inside of the cylinder by dripping some of the water down my left hand from the sponge. It's very tricky to not use your outside hand when doing this because your hand is used to going in there and doing some work and you just have to keep it back because otherwise you've basically ruined all the facets, all the work that you've done on the outside. The only thing my right hand basically did this whole time was what you just saw there. I used it to help compress the rim a little bit. That's another benefit of having that not carved all the way to the rim is that you do have that space where you can use your right hand a little bit or as you can see here I have my thumb from my left hand kind of resting on that rim as I stretch it out as well. It is nice to have that rim not be carved all the way through so that you can use it to stabilize as you're stretching out the clay. I am kind of folding out that rim just a little bit because I know I'm making a bowl. I'm going to just fold it out and that kind of helps get the bowl going in the right direction and as I stretch that it's already kind of leading the way. Like I said, you can see there I've got my thumb from my left hand right on that rim as I'm pushing out with my fingers on the inside just stretching, trying to get that curve the way that I want it and I also know, like I said, that I'm going to carve a foot on the bottom so I'm not too worried about as I get to the bottom. I'm just trying to get a nice curve on the inside and then work on that rim just a little bit, stretch it out and like I said, you can see the unevenness of the rim there and I'm not too worried about that. Like I said, that fits with the style of the bowl but having that knot carved all the way to the rim really does help. As I finish out the stretching, the shaping, I'm just going to clean out the water on the inside and then put a swirl on the bottom and you're pretty much done with this part of the process. I hope this video helps you. I hope if you decide to try one of these it goes well but just remember if it doesn't, there's always a learning curve. It never works out perfect the first time, it's never going to but that's okay. This is all part of the process of learning how to do these but I wish you luck if you give it a shot and thank you so much for watching, for supporting me on all my social media and I'll be having an online sale coming up soon so stay tuned to my social media for the dates on that and thank you so much for watching and we'll see you soon. Bye.