Playing with handle styles.

Okay, one of the subscribers asked me how I get my tiles to be so flat. Isn't that interesting? I stack them with weights. So when I dry them, I dry them with weights all around the edges and I carve them with weights placed around the edges that I'm not carving on. So there's an area where it's open and then there are other areas that have weights on so it keeps the tile edges flat all the time and then when they get past leather hard, they're almost dry, I take the weights off. But then when I bisque-fy them, I put the weights all back on. So there's a bunch of little tiles underneath here. These are just bits of broken kiln shelves. Over the years, I've broken a lot of kiln shelves. So what I do with them is I just take a hammer tool and smash them up into little bits and then basically save them for what I need to keep something flat. Now that's obviously a little bit of extra mass in your kiln so you're firing stuff, but it's flat. The next shelf down is a larger one, which makes a little bit more sense, I guess, because now it's just around the actual perimeter edge. I won't show you the whole lot because it's full of these. There's usually eight of these in one firing. And so as you can see, it is totally flat. And when I do the glaze firing, this has already been flattened so I don't need to worry about it because I bisque-fire at cone 01 and that is enough temperature so that this clay starts to warp. It's a natural clay. It's a clay that could go to cone 4, but it gets really dark chocolate brown at cone 4 and I actually didn't like it at all. At cone 06, it's beautiful orange and at cone 04, it's a sort of deeper orange and at this temperature, it goes that brick red that you can see underneath there. This clay starts to warp a little bit at cone 01 so I soak it for half an hour when I reach the bisque temperature of cone 01. So then when I glaze fire them at cone 04, I can even put plates on stilts and they don't warp so I can glaze the bottom of plates and the tiles do not warp up again when they go to cone 04. So it's actually, that's why I bisque at 01 and I glaze at 04. Okay, I'm gonna throw some different shape mugs at the moment because I'm pretty well positioned for the coming up season. I've got a lot of inventory built already and we still have 10 weeks before it really sort of gets started. So I thought I'd play with some shapes of mugs. 516 from Pottery Supply House in Toronto. In Ontario, rather. And I'm going to put their own underglaze over the top of it, which is supplied by Pottery Supply House. It's a black underglaze I bought a gallon of years ago and it didn't work for the earthenware that I was doing but I'm gonna try it on the stoneware because I think that's what it was meant for anyway. But so I'm using Bill Wright's little bat system where the two pins underneath to hold each little bat. You'll see me do that. So let's get some of these going. So they're just like little shallow bowls basically, but you put a handle on which I always find very difficult. I don't really feel like it. It's a shape that really likes having a handle put on it. It looks elegant anyway. You can put a handle on anything but to make it look right I've actually had a problem and I'm coming up with the perfect solution. So I'll try a few different ways of doing that too. But if you're building a nice shallow bowl it's a problem to actually decorate it because you're kind of working on the underside of it. So my wife actually carves things and paints things upside down. I'm not sure if my brain works that way. As you can see this kind of clay, 516, is a really nice one. It's very much like beemix. That's why I mixed it up. But I really like the grog version they have of it. If you watch my kiln unloading you've heard me say because it does something nice to the glazes. It's like the surface of the clay absorbs at different rates the glaze. The glaze is always interacting with the firing but this kind of has a nice interaction and variation between the different clays and the grog that's in the clay. Now I would never do a stencil design on a curved surface like this. That would be really difficult to get the stencils to lay flat. They don't get lots of creases in them if you put stencils on something this kind of shape unless they were very small stencils. I need to get a new sponge. This is looking pretty manky. Don't I usually have another one here? Yeah, I do. Let's get this one softened up. It's um... What is the date today? I think it's the 26th today. Now with these flexible metal ribs you can bend it to a curve which you can then place on there and give you a profile to throw against. Which I find easy to do. Now because I've been throwing that grog clay 516 with a speckled grog in it I actually was using something on the rims because it was so gritty a clay that it was necessary to smooth your rims out and compress them. But this clay is so smooth. You don't need to do that. And the nice thing because he's sticking out so far lifting them off the bat They definitely bend out of shape but when you just do them on these little tiny bats, they don't bend out of shape. Okay, I'm now going to throw I got 24 of those other ones thrown and so I'm now going to throw Some tall ones that are more specialty coffee type mugs And this weight of clay I got 20 from 22 pounds of clay so each ball is just over a pound in weight I'm just going to push this up and down a couple of times just to make sure it's even When you push it up and then push it back down It often will just be that little bit that's needed just before it goes into center and it works Okay, so I need a narrow base on these so i'm not going to open it up very far This is a mug that I usually have in the gallery, but it's definitely not one that sells real fast My traditional mug is definitely the one that people ask for. It's just got a wide base It's like a variation on the ship's mug. Oh that one take a little wobble variation on a ship's mug But this one is just less stable I would say as far as ease of knocking it over if you were Elbowing something it's more likely to tip over whereas the ship's mug will just slide across the table if you knock it But because of the weight here i've got an extra I don't know eighth of a pound maybe in each piece You can get a much bigger mug You can either get go for width or go for height And I I you know, we're potters. We know what we're most likely to sell every day. It's um For every one other item we sell probably three or four coffee mugs It's just the nature of being a potter So i'm going for a sort of double More elegant base down there. It's like a little plinth and pedestal for the mug to sit on attached to the bottom of the mug And this drags on the clay, but it's a nice shaping tool with those ribs, but I tend to really use the metal rib for anything So i've got a nice foot applied there just from the rib shaping And then i'm up here i'm going to give myself a double tankard lip Lift it up Push it in a bit higher and then go for that little extra So i'm going to throw 20 of these We have a big storm coming up on Next week apparently it's going to get really cold again probably won't be a lot of snow this time, but Apparently it's going to be a cold week So i'm trying to get a lot of pieces so I can keep the kilns firing to keep the studio warm I always fire them overnight But during the day they're cooling down and it really does help to keep the building warm All right, so that's the shape Okay, all those mugs I threw yesterday and they're all in the cupboard been drying overnight. Hopefully not too dry I have a damp cupboard. It's i'll show you a quick picture And I throw water in it on the bottom I put wet sponges in it When I leave in the evening so that things are hopefully fairly soft still in the morning But now I just have to make some handles and i'm going to play with handles in this video so this is my traditional I learned this at 17 years old how to pour handles And then my teacher told me to always Knock out was a teacher called greg allum in the 1970s in penniston grammar school Anyway He said you pull it and you then go wet your hand again, but you always snap off the bottom bit well that If you're careful, you can leave on because then you've got this extra thick bit where you thin the center For your handle and then you've got a thick bit down here and a thick bit up here and you can take advantage of that Because I always put an extra little thick piece in the bottom When i'm doing handles to strengthen the bottom attachment part So that when the handle gets not inevitably eventually It never breaks the actual join part. It's always in the middle of the handle, which is where it's a bit thinner So i'm going to pull and leave a little thin piece in the center And thicker areas top and bottom that way we can play and see whether I can get away with not Um having to add that little thick piece in the handle The bottom there But the regular way I do it Is I pull the handle down and then I add extra pulls on the very bottom To keep that from building up a thick piece And i've always done this And then I did the little Bit of clay when I actually attach the handle So you're getting a handle much that tapers all the way down basically I mean i'm going to pull a whole bunch of these but i'm also going to try a couple of handle tools To make some handles as well Because i'm playing Those coffee cups that are like cathio labels are really tough for me. I always kind of thought over How I actually you know what type of handle I put on them So i'll play around a little bit by turning the handle upside down and stuff like that So this is the damp cupboard where I store all the pieces overnight And it's quite tall Six feet I would say And the bottom I throw water in overnight As well as putting the pieces down there and this morning I tested them They're just a little firmer than they were yesterday so I can put handles on without any scoring and scratching So it's a great system basically So in the morning, I like to be able to move the piece Without any risk of you know, sort of staying bent And this piece here is what I would term just Past where I would like it to be so i'm going to be wetting that a bit. This one is yeah, it's a bit better And this one's okay. This one's definitely okay. So there's that one's really okay so there's just a little difference in the firmness because of the There's drafts in a damp coat obviously from the I have a door on the front of plastic overnight And there must be a little draft getting in there So things can dry a little bit at the edge But all I do in the morning If I can catch them at this point, there's no scoring and scratching I just wet every piece where i'm going to put a handle See how that that dented in straight away. So that one was much softer than the others And just you know, just go around a couple of times Just to wet them That was the soft one Okay, we've got a nice bit of moisture now. I did some playing with my handles if you remember when I was pulling them to actually Get extra thickness at the bottom and the top of some so i'll try one of those first These were just pulled, you know, these are only 10 minutes old So I simply thicken it up at the join And let's try it this one I guess And I I try to put it on down from the top of it So I can trim without it being off, you know lifted up a bit by the handle getting above that little bit So on the double lip I put it there and then I move it side to side i'm exaggerating side to side And up and down side to side until it won't move anymore And then just kind of position it, but you know, I kind of imagine when my fingers are going to go there And then I place it down Where I think it will be a good Let me see that A good fit there How many fingers do you want to put in? I like three at least And then I get to put it right at me so I can make sure it's Good, and then I always snap a little bit off the bottom because that's going to be the little Ball that will go up there And now I pulled these extra thick here, so i'm not going to put any clay in the center there But normally I would take this and stick it down in the center there as well. But these ones are a bit thick Um, so so I don't think I need to do that. So that's one's positioned now let's take one that Is thin and at the bottom Thicken it up again This one is thick at the top and thin at the bottom And then i'm placing it there Same again side to side up and down. This one was a bit softer. So it stuck really straight away And then once again, i'm holding it up and kind of looking to see how many fingers I want to put in there Making sure I could easily fit three Because it's going to shrink And then make sure that your eye One of my eyes is a bit stronger than the other so I always get them a little off so I compensate and then you snap a bit off Well, actually this one i'm just going to curl right up So I've got the extra thickness because this one was thin and then a little bit of clay that I would have snapped off Or I always keep a little bit left from my handle Then I place it inside there So I have that extra thickness anyway and then because of the You know if I was doing slip on these which some of them I will be because i'm going to carve some black and white Mugs out of some of these I add some extra clay up on the top there Because the more clay we have here The less chance the slip will soften the handle down enough because I will spray these completely with black slip or I can dip them Dipping is even more dangerous because the handle can over soften and fall off So you've got it stuck up there And that one i'm going to leave the way it is smooth and woollen in a minute Um, and I wanted to try a couple of experiments Where i'm not sure if this will work because I haven't done it before Where we join the bottom first? So i'm going to look at that one and just say okay, well i'm going to stick it on down there And we're going to curl it to put a handle on like that And i'll reposition it in a minute But I am going to put an extra bit of clay Underneath there to thicken that up as well And because i'm going to be putting slip in these You know because of the actual liquid quality of the slip there is that chance that it will over soften The handle i'm just getting this tiny little bit of like a wedge that I can put down in there And it's nice to have a little modeling tool that you can actually press down into that area there So that's one experiment that we can try Um I'm trying to think we could always just put one Similarly like that Join it Pull it up Trying to think what I'm trying to look at shapes to see what would be good. Would it be good like that? No, look at that. That's horrible Anything else we can get by doing this maybe a much taller loop like that That goes almost to the top so less more of a big curve but more of a loop let's try that I'm, just tacking to kind of hold them at the moment So there's the shape. Oh, you spared hard for you to see I know but there's the difference in that one on the left there um I think it's a left We got to think about this in reverse. I don't know. Anyway, two different style of handles there So that's what i'm going to be doing with all of these i'll play around with handles and then you can see which one's Satisfied this one is less of a challenge the the shallow balls the one I think is going to be a challenge To come up with something different for that. But anyway Okay, so I have been playing and it's tedious Uh, the handles maybe are a bit too soft at the moment Uh, because I aren't they're only 10 minutes old But you know normally I can put them on like that in the traditional way that I do it like that one and it's working fine But for these other shaped handles, they're really too Kind of fiddly this one wasn't so bad there But it's just hard because the clay is a bit soft if the clay was a little stiffer I think those would be possible to make those type of handles easier. You just have to adapt your process and your craft basically to Fit the uh Project that you're doing These handles of course are just very soft. So i'll come back to these in a few minutes when you know I'll give them a half an hour to foam up just sitting like that. Then i'll try and Reposition and not reposition but to sort of you know shape them better The pigeons are having a good time so the little ones These are firmed up a bit more Yeah, these ones are definitely firmer and so um, so i'm gonna have to Do some wetting the bottom will be fine. It's just the top area where i'm going to put the handle that I have to Get a little softer Those should be doable now So i'm going to try and these ones i'm just not going to stick that handle that comes up from the bottom because it just Wouldn't make sense in such a short area to have a handle so once again Place it move it side to side up and down Be careful not to disfigure the form because these are a bit firmer that's actually quite a Positive for the actual form holding shape and then turn it around underneath And just take a look Let's turn it around a bit that's not too bad, but i've never been happy with it, but it it just kind of It sticks out I guess it has to And then once again move it around. I usually stop a piece off Curve it up Put that extra thickness there and push in And then stick a little wedge Where you think the slip might build up if we spray these with slip And that's holding its shape pretty nicely anyway So i'm going to do that to all of the ones around here Okay, i'm still experimenting here. These are the teacups Or the actual cafeo labels and and this handle I stuck Thick part at the bottom and curl it over a lot further so you wouldn't get the floppiness And I don't think that's too bad when I smooth that in there. That could be quite nice. So This is how I did it That's not so bad at all, yeah, i'm gonna tack that one straight away because that's quite nice Okay, maybe we found a decent handle for this shape of mug all right, so because of the slip that i'm going to be Spraying on these or underglaze not sure what i'm going to do yet. I've got a whole gallon of underglaze that's probably 10 years old But i'll see whether I can spray that or not, I don't usually like spraying underglaze it's expensive But I need to clean my spray booth out as soon as the temperature warms It's been too cold right I haven't cleaned it since last fall But I don't spray that much anyway, so it's just the black and white pieces that I've been I spray So i'm sticking that wedge in just there I don't need any wedge in the bottom. That's actually quite thick down there anyway Okay. Now i'm not going to try wetting these because I know this clay It's like a porcelain if you add water to it, you get like it can literally crack apart and split open Do not want to add any extra water And then that part i'm simply going to try smudging the end Okay, so there's a little bit of adjustments i'm going to do as they firm up a little bit But those handles aren't so bad um, i've actually i'll You know the other ones I did the traditional way Um, but this one is a different way and it's actually working out pretty good. So I'm Happy about that Okay, this is about an hour and a quarter later And the handles have actually firmed up a little bit So I might be able to try some Let's have a look. I just tried softening these down a little bit, too That one's good. That one's good Yeah, this one needs a little bit more you can tell by the stickiness of your fingers against the clay You just get an instinct for it But I've got a couple of those Handles from uh, the handle tools that artisan pottery tools supplies Um, so what i'm going to try and do and this is still soft down here is put this down The thick end at the bottom Remember at the beginning these would be too floppy. So we'll see whether they're a bit better now And actually if you want to put something behind there when you're pressing Makes it a little easy to get a good Join and then we pull them up make sure it's straight Bend it down It's fairly straight then take a look at it See whether it's got a good shape. That is not a good shape Maybe a little lower down. Yeah, it could be nice if it didn't go above the rim because then you can trim these fairly Well, so I think that will be what i'll go with Just trying to see whether we can do this without too much bother and then smudging in At least this has gone a bit more It's a bit easier to actually join that than my own traditional way to do it And then we can actually form it into a nicer curve A bit later on because at the moment it's not so great And then we got this one from the um handle tool and this is a very wide big handle for this I'm going to thicken it up a little bit I think it's slightly too big a handle. We'll see if it always cut it down, but I made some of these last year and they sold So that works there I don't need any of that lot down there though. I'll have to cut that off Put that inside Put a little moisture on my thumb It's a chunky handle that will probably make some people very happy okay, so then we have to These ones in now Okay, so we've got the handles joined i've just moistened the gap between The handle and the pot there Because there's a there's a crevice And i'm going to try to push a little ball of clay in there that has a sort of a tapered end so that I can Try to inhibit the fact that i'm pretty sure i'll get some Slip build up which could make a little crack and then I might have to reshape the handle a touch but I've been using my stamp push down This might not be a very good thing to do. I don't know yet. I usually do it by other forms, but it's squeezing the handle away From the pot and it's not disfiguring it too much But i'm trying to push that lump down into that crevice My stamp's a little bit big for this Drying out we can go back and just make some changes All right This is the underglaze that i'm going to try using i've had this for A long time five six seven eight years I don't even remember when I bought it last and I only tried it once on earthenware clay And I applied it when the clay was fairly soft and here on the top. I just noticed it says use on dry or bisqued clay Fire only individually benefited kill. Well, okay, so I put it on soft clay and I put it on so maybe I was the problem but I've always been doing it onto but anyway, i'm going to try it so i've turned the pieces upside down on their little white throwing bat To try and keep the inside white So that just the outside will be black And that will stop the piece getting So saturated with black sort of underglaze that it would just melt the clay back to slip Okay, these pieces have been drying overnight and i'm just going to do a little bit of fluting with them This is a potato peeler Available from any walmart canadadian tire or most kitchen stores, I guess It does a great job And I sort of sometimes oh I need a light on this though I can flute from the top just a little notch, which is a nice way of diverting the glaze Or disrupting the glaze I should say Because it actually flows down the little footage channel I will often run but this notice this sort of stops the running as much quite as much With a nice pattern because it'll gather in there then it slips over to here kind of thing. That's The same applies to the more vertical taller forms as well go watch you don't catch the handle because i've nicked those the handles occasionally And on a smaller Circumference form you get a deeper cut So be careful you don't go right through it's kind of a nice pattern you'll find if you use a glaze that has a little pigment in it that sort of Goes deep darker in the crevices and such This is the normal way I do this handle where it kind of goes in at 90 degrees at the top The one on the right there is tilting down just a touch Uh, the one on the left is the way I pretty much normally do it and I was always a little unhappy with this because it just you know, it feels like it's actually Just there. I mean it doesn't doesn't flow into the form. So I was never real happy with this. So Um, I tried some other ones and so i'll show you the next ones Here I actually You know really exaggerated the handles kind of change from the form of the piece so instead of flowing into the form it really kind of You know just it's there as well, but it's such an exaggeration that I feel like it actually isn't bad Um, so i'm not unhappy with these Um, this is an option. I may try more often in the future Um the little button I put in the center there for the thumb. I call it the home for the thumb Uh is actually pushing the handle down a little bit Um, so I may try these handles a little bit more Flowing into the form without that button. Um, so that's there'll be a further development on these When I did using the handle tool from artisanpotterytools.com And I was quite happy with this one it actually I'll just turn it around for you has that beautiful Kind of parallel lines of two different colors going down the handle which you could really take advantage of that as a decorative area Um, but the actual form of it Um was pretty reasonable. Um, I may have possibly I could have lifted it up a bit more Uh at the top part of the handle But um, but I was very happy with this one and that's actually mouse gray with very giddy blue and oatmeal over it Okay, the one on the left here Is actually applied the way I normally do uh, this is tenmeku gold very giddy blue and oatmeal um, so The one on the left is the way I normally do it So it's fat at the top and the thinner part is applied at the bottom And on the right hand side the fat side was applied to the bottom and then the thinner side was applied to the top With a little bit of a curve into it. So both work. I mean, I don't think that i'd be unhappy with either one of those two Um, so that's something we can play with more in the future as well Okay, these two the handle on the left was applied with the fat side at the top and then a thin part to the bottom Which is the way I normally do it on the right hand side The fat side of the handle was applied to the bottom and then a thin to the top with a little button pushed in there So it actually works as well. Um, I don't mind either one of those two handles Um, but I actually feel like once again The little button is pushing the handle down a bit too much. So possibly I could just Forget about putting the button into those i'm going to try that in a few more handles But i've always done a button in that area on my pots. So but we'll see i'm thinking about eliminating the button