244. Poking & Pinching a Vase with Hsin-Chuen Lin 林新春 ~ Higher Fire Studio Class Demo 5/18/2016

You see that when I'm centering, my right arm is kind of braces here without moving and I just keep on squeezing the clay onto my right hand, onto the center. So this is one other way of centering. Or you can do this, squeeze up your clay and then push down. Or even if you have a larger amount of clay, my way of doing this is try to bend the clay, bring the clay outside and push down. So there are many, many different ways of centering. It's just finding the support. Like I told you, try to use the point pressure. You will throw your clay more efficiently. I also explained before why you want to use the point pressure. If you have a piece of wood and then you put 25 bags of clay here, this has a larger area like this here. Versus if you have a needle tool and you put a bag of clay here, which one will hurt? The needle, right? Because the touching area is smaller, it pierces it. The pressure is harder. The same thing when you try to squeeze the clay, if you try to use here, you have a larger area touching it, you will throw less efficiently. Versus, see that if I'm trying to move the clay, I'm using the fingertip, then the clay is moving more efficiently than trying to use the center of your palm. So that's one way of throwing more efficiently. Now I am going to open the hole. I usually use my thumb to dig a small hole, small opening on the top. And then when I'm ready to dig even deeper, I actually use my left hand, okay? The left hand just goes straight, push from there with my right hand is holding here on the side, and rest my thumb right on the back of my right hand and just go straight in. So when I'm drilling it, my both hands are also squeezing the wall to control the wall. A lot of people, they have a center, but when they open it, they lose the center. It's because when they are drilling it, they don't compress the wall. So you need to remember, you need to compress the wall. Even putting, some people doing this way, okay? Use both hands and then put the thumb outside. When they're drilling it, see that the thumb is holding on the outside and compress the wall. All of this is also within my three S's, the support. When you're drilling it, you want to have a very good support. You see that my arm is connecting here without moving. And I try to open the hole wider so that you will be able to see the inside. I'm compressing the inside. Okay, so that's the opening. Now, when you are ready to rest up, actually you can get your wall a bit, you get your cylinder narrower by calling in. Yeah, this is the way I'm pushing it and also the finger here. So this hand is kind of squeezing it and also this finger, the right fingertip, squeeze with this both fingers and kind of forming a triangle, okay? One, two, three, three spots, and then just squeeze it up. And you see that my thumb is there to control the room. So I have a low opening. Now I rest up my wall by calling the cling in. And now I have my right hand here holding on the outside and the inside is going to do the little lifting, lifting the wall from the inside. Put the slip back to work. Remove the slip from my fingertips. Remember, if you use a lot of water, the water weakens your wall. The water is going to soak into your wall and your wall become too weak. So if you use a slip, the slip is better than water. It's not so moisture, but you still have a slippery here on the inside. And also the slip stick on the wall. It doesn't go down here, right? Versus your sponge, you squeeze all the water. The water go here and then just go to your splash pan. It's not efficient, but by removing the slip, you put it here. See that? Put it outside. Remove the slip from finger and put it inside. You lubricate, keep it slippery, right? Now I'm ready to rest up the wall. Try to connect my thumb here with my, holding my right hand to stabilize it. And you see that? When I stabilize it here, see where is my arm, my elbow? It's connect to my body. Using my body to connect, try to rest up the wall. That's also the support, the support. Supporting right here, connecting and rest up. Slowly let go and compress the rim. And you don't want your rim, when you throw, maybe this part is a little bit too thick. You can emphasize here by just thin down this portion here. Just pinch here and rest up here. Put the slip back to work. Put the slip back to work. I want to rest up a little bit higher in the wall now. Remove the slip. A trick, the slip here. So if I feel like too much drive, make the shape now. And you want to be able to rest up your wall without getting too much problem. And when you are using the rip, you don't even have any water at all. Okay, just keep it slippery here using the slip. Try to bring out the wall. So the first step, I didn't even move my rip. My rip stay on the same spot right up to here, this point. And then I start to do. You might want to ask what's the inside look. This is the inside. You see that? All of them touching the wall lightly. Without any clay there, right? Kind of push out and then the rip outside is just holding it lightly. So you raise up your wall like that. I'm stretching now, yes. Stretching and also the way using this, the wooden rip, is try to remove the throwing mark. When I'm throwing, it's the throwing mark here. By using the harder part of the rip, when I stretch it, I remove the throwing mark. And I'm going to keep a narrow neck, so I will keep my neck a little bit taller. So I start to blow up here, from here to here, but keep this part a bit longer. So later on, after I shrink it, I can get a taller neck. Right, the final shaping, I usually like to use the metal rip instead of the wooden rip. Because for the metal rip, I could bend it so that the surface will be more even, the curve will be even nicer. And also the surface, compressed using the metal, will be even more smooth. And when I'm shaping, my eyesight is not looking here, right here, okay? It's looking more farther and to catch that, that I can see the curve and see which spot that I need to stretch more. My inside hand gets the message and I push out more. So my eyesight actually is looking at I just go like this and see which part I want to go out more. Like here, I want to go out more here, a little bit more. So next time when I stretch, I can stretch more from this portion. following up. All the fingers, the inside finger looks like this. Just bring out, touching, lightly touching the wall. So all the fingers, I just, when I stretch, my next stretch, I bring out my finger and show you where the spot has no clay, that's where I've been touching the inside of the wall. Okay, so see that? This point, a little bit more here, more here, a little bit more here, this part. So all the four fingers is touching. My inside hand, the thumb is here. And where is the rib relative to the index finger? Yeah, well the inside is a curve, you see that the curve? And the inside fingers form like a curve too, right? So lightly bring out the wall and then the rib is right here. All the fingers, because this part is the curve. Well, you see that when I'm throwing, I remove the slip and I toss it in, right? So now I'm using all the slip. When I'm trying to shape it, I take out from the bottom and try to coat it so I don't need to have any water. I use the residual of the slip inside. So by the very final stage, if you come closer, you can see that the inside has nothing because I used up everything. Okay, so this part here, for the shapewise, this part here is a little bit out, but on the shoulder here, I think I need to come out more. Okay, this part, this part, the middle part is a little bit straight, so I will push out a little bit more. That's for my personal preference, but I'm just telling you that. there's nothing left. It's just almost dry. Okay, so that was the slip I tossed in, and then when I'm shaping it, I just grab from the bottom and try to use that to coat it so that the inside is also smooth. Now, like I told you, before I poke the holes, I just want to keep the cylinder so that it's big enough for my finger to go in, for my arm to go in. I keep my openings small. If you are not sure, you can make some marks here. Like if I want to have six of them, okay, so roughly you can draw on your back. So six of them, so you just torch that spot accordingly. Okay, so my fingers go in there and push out. One, two. So you didn't poke through, right? No, not this one. I want to have a natural look. It's not quite yet. Let me just roughly get that mark, and then I can emphasize more. So you only use a torch for the outside. You don't do anything inside, right? No. If you want to contain water, you don't need to poke all the way through. If by accident you poke it through, you can roll a small clay ball inside and just patch it. support inside, and then this finger to squeeze up the wall. So you squeeze up, but not pull up, right? Squeeze it, yeah. The inside hand support it, and just squeeze the clay. little overlap, the thread. I'm just going to do one by one, using the point. With the hand, And of course, yeah, you will push that clay outward. Just get a flat knife, and just go underneath, so you will have a clean base. Okay, on. There's one other way that we push it out from inside, right? Now I want to push. Okay, get a sponge and wet it. Yeah, that's why when I'm poking the holes, I don't go straight. Yeah, so before the clay dries, you can do pretty much everything to it. You change the look, change the shape. Yeah, I would trim the bottom. Yeah, you can still trim the bottom. Okay, so that's the look. And if I wanted to, okay, get a pinch too. Still change the shape. Maybe one part here, one part here. This time, not go all the way through. Maybe I can patch from the inside. Yeah, it's a similar design to that one, but I'm not going to put the clay ball there. It's just like a handle. Make sure looking at the handle. Yes, it's not an actual handle. Okay, if you mine the hole, you can patch it. I'm not mining the hole like that one. Still hole water. Yeah, if you want a hole water. Yeah. Okay, any questions?