A new way to make Tea Bowls using scrap clay.

[laughter] [music] [music] [music] [music] Down. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >> Well, I didn't talk very much in this uh video up to now because this wheel I'm throwing on is my Brent, which is about 3540 years old, and it makes a lot of squeaking and vibrating noise, and I know it annoys some people, but basically, I'm throwing about a third of a pound for these tea balls. It's only recycled clay. So, it's a bit of a 455 speckle with some 516 white stone wear and a little bit of BM mixed in there, too. So, you got, you know, who knows what. Uh, and the odd bit of, uh, floor trimmings and whatever else you find in it. Uh, bird seeds occasionally. But, um, but it throws pretty well. Goes through my bug mill and, [snorts] um, and I've been able to throw some nice balls as you can see. So, we're going to be doing some really fun experiments with heavy thick sludge on these a little later in the video. Um, so hope you enjoyed this part and let's uh get going on the rest. And then they're going to be a lot of them are going to be put in a Rau kiln this coming weekend and we'll post that video very quickly. [snorts] Um, it's a test for that ve little kiln that came out. Well, a lot of the tea bowls I did disfigure a little bit. Um um you there's a kind of a natural kind of earthy quality to tea balls that you see in Japan. Um [snorts] so I was trying to, you know, just change the form by using the ribs to kind of knock the sides of them, carve out a little bit potentially. And I've got a whole bunch of these made. Um, not all of them are in racu clay. In fact, only about four of these are in raccoon clay. But I've [snorts] left quite a lot of them smooth. Um, because I plan on doing some, you know, textural slip work on them. Uh, like those are all totally smooth. Went online for pallet knives and searched out a whole bunch of pallet knives here. Um, and they came in a packet. I think the company is a Chinese company called Teimu and they sold and I don't get paid anything for this. I just bought these myself um because I just want to play around with the surfaces of the pots knives that have textures so you can do different things to the surface of your painting cuz they're meant for painters rather than potters. But let's play with them as potters. So these are the ones I threw yesterday and I kept them in my damp cupboard overnight. So they're not they're still bendable a little bit. Can you see this? So, they're still bendable a little bit. [snorts] Now, the last ones I did were on totally almost dry clay. Um, and and it still worked. So, um, what I'm doing is simply taking some slops. These are my clay slops from my wheel and whatever. And I'm simply playing with it and just seeing what I get. See if I can get this so you can see. rough, but I've seen Japanese tea balls that look like it's a piece of earth that's taken out of the ground and hollowed out, and I kind of like them. In fact, one of my friends, Jeff Shapiro, in New York, [snorts] um, has some very earthy pieces like that. be trained train trained in Japan. So that's what I got. So I can't imagine it's that rough, but I kind of like the fact that it's rough out of it. So I'm going to dab these with a sponge. Once they're themselves leather hard, these are applied bits. Then I'll [snorts] dab them with a sponge to take away any real rough quality. But don't you think that's nice? I really like that. And this is the great thing about these bats that I got from Bill Wright. [snorts] They really do enable you to work on things just like this in your hand. So simply this these slops are kind of fairly firm like it doesn't run off the pot. That's too much to leave on. I say you've got to edit a little bit. And this is just one of the tools that I have here. So imagine with all these tools, there's like 12 different profiles of the ribs. I'm actually going to explore doing landscapes with them with my neural tiles. So, I think that's definitely got some potential. Now, I'm going to try this one. I'm not sure how. I'll try this one. This one's a little softer by the feel of it. See if I can hold them so [snorts] you can see better. Yeah, the stuff is a little firm. Maybe I should try some slit. That's a bit softer. It's still leaving a really nice. This is a bit softer. This little one here. Yeah, I don't know if the softer or the rougher is better. I liked the rougher better. So, the softer is a bit more even. But that's that square edge tool. So, I've got to check how soft they are. Those are pretty soft because I don't want them to collapse either. Um, so I'll do this way again. Oh, that's really nice. Look at that. I can feel the piece bending as I push the pallet knife across it. So, I'm just accepting. I could wipe it all off and do another one, but I'm accepting whatever I get cuz I think this is trying to get them sort of natural and earthy. Now, I've got this one, which has got lots of much thinner lines. I'm going to try this one. So, that's what I've got to work with. Oh, it's falling off. Oh, it's fell off. Okay. Kind of the similar, but let's get the stuff off there. Sorry if I wander off the camera because I'm watching the piece rather than the the iPad. Oh, I fell off. Guess it doesn't matter. [snorts] Thinner lines obviously. And there's nothing to stop me going back the other direction, you know, just sort of feeling like, okay, so let's let's go a bit more intensely. Oh, I don't know because I like the natural, but I could start going back in the other direction. I got to sponge the rim a little bit. Went over the rim there. But let's see. I guess I got so many I can play. Okay. So, we took a lot off and we left a lot more lines on it. I was going to say I could go in the opposite direction, but I think I would just sort of lose too much for little gain. So, I'm just going to leave that one as that is. >> [snorts] >> Let's try doing it down like that so you can see it better. Scrape it off on the piece. Remember, these are still pretty soft. It's a good job I got them on these bats because my fingers wouldn't be able to hold the bottom of the pot because it'd be slippery. >> [snorts] >> So, obviously the stuff on the rim, if I get my little round sponge, stuff on the rim that might be a little worrying for people drinking out of it. You can just smooth it off again with a sponge. So, I have lots of these tools and my idea is to do some landscape murals with them. Um, but they're useful for this as well. And this whole bag, I think I paid like $10 for all the whole lot. I mean, it's ridiculously priced. You know, lots of stuff can be done with these. They're very kind of potential. It's huge for creativity. So, [snorts] here is a really interesting one. [snorts] Maybe I apply the slip on this one and then do it. What's this? The shape of this. You know, I'm going to try it without just using this and see what happens. >> [laughter] [snorts and clears throat] >> Okay, there's a nice texture without applying any slip. And then got to take care of the rim. This piece is quite soft. There you go. The rim's smooth again. But that was easy. This is a small one. So, let's see what I can get if I use pickup slip with this. [snorts] Wow, nice. >> [snorts] >> So, we got some lines and some lumps. Lumps and lines. Is that the name of the video? I think I don't know what to call my videos. YouTube wants you to come up with these amazing creative titles that make people watch your video. I guess I'm very boring on titles. There you go. So, we're getting a bit repetitive with these, I think. So, I'll try one more. So, this is this one. Much bigger lines. Let me figure out how to hold these so you can see them. Yeah, this one. This part is quite soft. It's denting down as I push. So, I'm probably disfiguring this one quite a bit. I can always put it back on the wheel anyway. Lots of ways of applying lots of tools. It's not too bad. It didn't go off center too much at all. Now, I have applied this stuff when the piece is quite dry. So, I think that um you can do this [snorts] anywhere up to just past leather hard. And if you get it out of the center, of course, you can just do that. If you can get it out again. There you go. And this is what I mean by later on. I'll just dab to make sure there's no sharp pieces. That should take care of anything that's really rough. But the idea is to make them rough. And if you don't want to do any yucky slip type muddy decorations, you can always go back to the old reliable stamps. Um, so this one's not too dry. I'm just going to try stamping a little bit. It's um hard on thrown forms to put texture in. because you have to put the oppos opposing pressure on the inside. But this one sort of seems to call out for it. It should be quite nice when it's done. See if we can find another one. Sometimes the simple ones are the best. [snorts] This one was always hard to hold. I don't know. I needed to glue a thing on the back of this one. There's a little half a sunflower. Try that. That's [snorts] not too bad. could do different ones on every space of course, but like simple is often best. Being from Britain with the history of ceramics in Britain, that wasn't always the case. Well, it' be fun to glaze these. Okay, the next thing I have to do to these, they have been left now for about 36 hours. I had them drying in a damp cover, so not naturally. Uh, [snorts] so it slows it down a bit, but cuz they normally would dry in just a day. We have to trim them. So, I'm obviously trimming on a gifing grip. There's various mates of this now I've seen around. I'm using an R2 tool for trimming. It's a very detailed kind oriented tool here which I use for trimming. Allows me to do tiny little areas and be very controlling over it. So, I'll make some little lines there. I'm going to make another line right there. Maybe I'll make two there. And then just trim out the center. Got to be careful I don't go through on these cuz I throw a little thicker on these so I can get a foot. But it's easy to go through. And then these ones are very gritty clay. [snorts] This is a racu clay. So, I'm going to definitely smooth out my base. Just the foot itself that touches any surface. Could probably do the inside area there a little bit. Oh, yeah. That feels like a piece of glass now. And then we could do some chattering on them. That will hurt. Do I have a good tool here? I think this one will work. It's a little blunt, but um be hard to see with the um grit that's in there as well, but there is some chatter in there. And then I like to get rid of any crumbs. Now, rau glazes tend, you know, reduction fire basically. It should be really interesting over that texture. But I am going to just sort of use my pedal because that rim feel the grit coming through it. Just a touch. I'm not used to throwing gritty clays. You can just kind of push that in a little bit there. Get that slightly smoother. Oh yeah, that feels much better. Anyway, I've got about 10 of these in racu clay and then I got about 40 in regular clay. So, um, so I'll be doing those in the regular stone, you know, electric kilm. But these 10 I'll do in the raccoon kil hopefully. Here's one of the ones I did with the slip texture using the pallet knives. Um, it's [music] dried. It's a little softer than the other pieces, but it is now, you know, it's just about leather hard. Maybe a touch softer, but I'm going to try it. >> [music] >> there. >> [music]