CLAY WHEEL THROWN DECORATIVE VASE 2 12 26

Okay, in this video I have a bowl or pot that I've thrown. It's been stained, it's leather hard, and I'm going to add a few guidelines on here with my small loop tools to set up some boundaries for parts of the pattern. So here I'm putting a few faint sketches onto the outer surface of the stain, using a fringe curve here to do the same thing, adding a few faint guidelines. They won't show up after the final firings, but at least it'll give me some guidelines to break this up into eight sections, going all the way around, repetitive pattern, filling each one of them. So here I am starting to make the first relief cuts, or carving away on there, using those guide curves as the pin of the boundary. This again repeats eight times, going all the way around. There's one more curve that'll be added for the basic outline of the profile. That's the start of it right here. After that, most of this is going to be just freehand, but at least I'll have it broken up into eight sections. Again, this clay is leather hard, it's a cone 5 clay, it's a stoneware type clay, it has a fine mesh grog in it so the loop tool doesn't get snagged on large pieces of grog and leave a scratch mark in there instead of a smooth curved baseline. So here I'm starting the inner parts of the pattern here again, repetitive all the way around, and it'll develop as it goes along with a few more features. Some of these pieces are a little more complicated than others, but I like the basic simple patterns, at least on this type. The mirror frames are a little more complicated. A few more relief cuts on those patterns there as I'm doing here. That tool right there is just an old paintbrush with a music wire loop that was attached to it. Like I said, I have different types of music wire loops on the pieces for different types of grooves that I'll cut out. So this piece again, it'll be finished with the carving, it'll be leather hard when it's done, it'll be allowed to dry to room temperature for a day or two, then it'll be bisque fired. After it's bisque fired, it'll be taken out and it'll have a semi-transparent glaze applied to the outer surface. Then it'll be fired again and I'll be able to see this pattern that you see there as sort of a red oxide color. It'll turn black and through the semi-transparent glaze, the pattern will show up through the glaze. And that's pretty much it for the carving of this piece. This is an old camera that I'm using here and the picture's not that great, but I'll be switching back to the other camera.