How to Make a Clay Vase Handbuilding Pottery Tutorial Step by Step.

Welcome to this pottery tutorial. I hope you enjoy this lesson and find it helpful for your own ceramic practice. Before we begin, please consider subscribing to the channel and leaving your thoughts or questions in the comments. I always enjoy hearing from you and seeing what you create. In today's video, we are going to make a ceramic vase using a combination of two hand-building techniques, the slab method and the coil method. At first, this process might look a little challenging, but with patience and practice, it becomes a very enjoyable and rewarding way to build forms with clay. If any questions come up while you're watching, feel free to ask them in the comments. I'll be happy to help. Now, let's start building the vase together. First, as you saw in the video, you need to make a slab. Try to make the thickness of your slab around one and a half to two centimeters, because this will be the main base of the form and it needs to support the full weight of the piece. As you saw in the video, I first made a simple slab and then let it rest for a full day so it could reach the leather hard stage. Once it reached the leather hard stage, I removed it from the mold and now we can begin the first step. I start adding the coils one by one so the form can grow in height until it reaches the shape I want. When you add the coils, pay attention to this. As the height of the piece increases, the thickness of the coils should become thinner and thinner. Whenever you feel that your piece cannot support more weight, let it rest again until it becomes leather hard for a few hours or even a full day. After that, you can continue adding the coils and building the form further. From this point, as you add more coils and the height of the form increases, for safety it is better to place the piece back into the mold. Then, continue adding the coils while the piece is supported inside the mold. This helps make sure the structure stays stable and reduces the risk of cracking. Another important detail to pay attention to is this. After adding about three or four coils, start connecting and blending them together both from the outside and from the inside of the form. Just remember one important thing. If you are joining the coils from the outside, place your other hand inside the form as support so the wall of the piece does not collapse under the pressure. As you saw in the video, I allowed the piece to rest for another full day so it could reach a firmer leather hard stage. After that, I removed the form from the mold, turned it upside down and started building a base for it using coils. As you can see in the video, I made sure that the thickness of the base was strong enough to support the weight of the whole form. After completing this step, let your piece rest again until it reaches the leather hard stage. This may take several hours or even a full day. Once the clay has reached the right consistency, you can begin adding texture to the surface. You can see in the video how I create the texture on the form. After that, you can apply engogue or any glaze you prefer to decorate your piece.