Making Flower Bowls (Hand-Building Tutorial)

Hello everyone, my name is Jaspreet. Welcome to my studio. Today I'm back with another hand building tutorial and I'll show you how I make these flower bowls. I have really enjoyed making them as with all my other projects. Now I'm actually in the middle of my market season. I have a bunch of markets coming up in the next couple of weeks and months and I like to make these little pieces for my market along with the bigger ones because these are an easy sell especially for people who've not seen you before, not met you before, never been exposed to your work for them. It's an easy thing to pick and try. If they like your work, if they enjoy their work, the first time around they might not you know pick up the biggest piece on the table. They'll probably go with something small. So I like to make these smaller pieces because they tend to move a lot faster and over the last three years I've noticed that my work is usually bought as gift like especially during this season. A lot of people buy my work as a gift. So every year I try to come up with a bunch of new designs, a bunch of new patterns so that people who've already bought from me and who I know like my work have more options to choose from, new things to pick from. So I like to always you know come up with a few different ideas, a few new designs every year. Last year I did these flower bowls in this format with simple flowers. This year I obviously modified it a little bit to make these kind of pieces and this is for the smaller ones. Also in terms of the bigger pieces, I do like to make a few new items, a few different items which are more festive, more apt for the season. So I'll probably share them in my subsequent videos or maybe on Instagram. You'll definitely see them. As I said, I'm in the middle of a market season. So if you'd like to see behind the scenes, what is the prep that goes into it, what are the pieces that I bring with me, what is the reason for it, what are the price points and how I set up my table and things like that, let me know in the comments below. If that's something that interests you, I'd be happy to share those but they will be more a vlog kind of a video. But you can always do that. Also today I'll be showing you how I make these flower bowls. I'll not be glazing them. If you'd like to see a tutorial on how I glaze them, please let me know again in the comments so I can get to that. But for now, let's get started with making these flower bowls. Okay, so here's my clay slab. This is rolled to a quarter of an inch in thickness and even though we're making a small piece and this is a really small piece, even though we're making this smaller piece, I am not going to thin down my clay any further because we have to press down the leaves to make this texture, to get this texture and the shape and things like that. So I'm not going to thin it down any further because that will end up tearing my clay when I press it to make these petal you know impressions and things like that. So that's why it's not going to be thinned down any further. I am going to compress my clay using my yellow sherry mud tool grip with the flat side facing down at an angle. I just go over the clay surface and compress the clay and get rid of the clay texture. This is something which just happens automatically now. It's just part of my process. Flip and do the same on this side as well. Alright, here's my clay all prepped. Now the next step is to cut out the shapes, the flower shape. I'm going to be using this cookie cutter. All of this will be linked in the description you can find on my Amazon storefront. Just one more note about the Amazon storefront. A lot of people assume that I'm selling those things. I'm not selling any of these tools. These are all available on Amazon by different sellers. I just list them together in a store where you can easily find the links to those. That's it. I'm not selling any of these. So that's the cutter I'll be using. Now before I start cutting, I am going to just release the clay to make sure that it's not stuck onto the board. So when I cut down my smaller flower shapes, I don't have to peel each and every one off you know individually. So I just release the clay once and now because I'm using this plastic cutter, it does tend to stick the clay a lot. So what I'm going to do is, now some people like to use a plastic and a cutter to do that. This cutter is not very sharp. I've tried it. It's not very sharp so I'm not going to use plastic because then I'm going to get really, I'm not going to get really clean rims, edges. So I'm not going to be using plastic but you can use that. I'll be using a little bit of cornstarch on the clay surface just with a brush. I'm going to dust it over. I have a bigger brush which I use. This is my brush that I like to use. Nice and fluffy. Just place it all over the clay. Okay. This will absorb some of the excess moisture from the clay and the other thing I'm going to be doing all along is using this on the rim of my cutter as well because like I said this one tends to stick quite a bit. Pressing in, making sure it's all the way through from all sides and then releasing. Move this onto another board here. Get a clean cut. Again, you'll see some of the clay stuck on here. Just get rid of this. That will give you a better cut for the next round. This happens specifically with this particular cutter. I'm not sure why. Brushing a little bit of cornstarch here and pressing it. The steel cutters, this kind, I mean they also stick sometimes but only after like before cuts is when they start sticking. This one sticks every time you put it in place. Just use a little bit of cornstarch and continue your cutting process. I don't like how messy cornstarch can get on the table because then it looks like your table is dirty. I just cleaned up my table now it's all dusty. That's not a good process. Just clean it off. Don't throw away these scraps just now because we're going to be cutting because you have to make these feet. We'll be using those so don't throw them away. So that's the last one and now I'm going to cut out the feet. Let me just clean this up one last time. Last time I finished using it then I go in with a damp sponge and clean it off my feet so it's ready to use the next time around. There you go. Now for these scraps I'm going to bring in a little circle cookie cutter. This is about half an inch diameter. I'll be using this one. I know I've just wiped it with a damp sponge. Let me just wipe it off. Okay this is going to be my foot at the base. I'm going to cut out these circles. I got eight flowers from this. I'm going to try and get eight circles where I can. See here also it's a little thick that happened. Again this one will be I'll dip this in water. Dunk it in water actually. This is oil mask and then put it in a plastic bag and let it get a little soft. Wet it back again and use it to make more of these bowls and smaller things with my recycled clay. Okay now on to step number two. I'm gonna bring in my banding wheel and twist. And here's my flower shape. Now I have to the next step is adding these petal things. This petal impression in clay. And for that I will be using this silicone mold. Again this will be listed. There are these are available in a lot of different kind of you know designs and veining and stuff. This is another one so it's up to you what you like which kind of pattern you like. I really like this one so I'm going to use this one. Now with this when this came this comes obviously this comes as a set like this but if you see here this one had a little bit of you know the mold sticking out and that was tearing into my clay when I was pressing it in. So I just kind of chopped it off with the scalpel. Just remove that so that it's a little blunt and it doesn't you know poke through the clay and cut it out. So that's one thing just check for your mold. It may not be in all the molds. Some of them have this issue. Okay this is what I'll be using and because it's silicone mold and because there's a lot of very fine veining and very fine details in here what happens is that the clay tends to stick quite a bit in these. So for these I have to use conch starch. There's just no two way about them and there's no option without using that. So I'm going to be putting conch starch on my plate in the back in the front and also on this because like I said they tend to really stick the clay. So there are two parts like I explained earlier like this comes like this. Now this is the one with a little bit of depression and this is the one which is raised. The depressed one goes underneath. The raised one comes on top. I'm not very precise about lining the two together. You know exactly that doesn't matter. Just holding on to the two and then pressing on my leaf on my petal like this. There you go. You'll see that's what happens. It gives it a little bit of shape and it thins down the clay. That's why we did not thin it down even further because if it was thinner then there is a likelihood that your clay will start tearing and it may happen even at this thickness. I think it's manageable but it's better not to go thinner than a quarter of an inch even though it's a small piece. I'm going to continue doing this all the way around. Just add conch starch here and on this and yes I picked conch starch from my table so I don't have to clean it up later. Not because I'm skimping on the conch starch. I just don't like the white powder everywhere. Just pressing it again and very lightly releasing it. See here I pressed a little too much and you can see the clay has come apart. That's okay. It's a petal. It does not really matter much but be careful depending on what kind of clay you're using. With this clay it will work. I'm just starting pressing at the bottom of the petal like at the center of the petal and then going all the way up. You don't really need the bending wheel for this but and you can see I'm using conch starch every time I'm pressing this because like I said this particular mold does tend to get a little too sticky and conch starch is a great release agent. This is the last one and don't worry about being very precise with where exactly the petal is and things like that. It's not going to matter. There you go. There you have your petals all done. The next stage is where we need our bending wheel and a clay knife. I'm going to be using this scalpel. With this I'm going to start making some bevel cuts like angled cuts at all of these points where the two petals meet. I'm going to start making some bevel cuts. I'm not being very precise about where I'm cutting. I'm just kind of eyeballing it more or less equal to the distance. Just going through like this. So I have made these six as expected. I've made these six angled cuts here. Now because my clay is still soft I do not necessarily see a need to fold the sides here but I will add a little bit of water. So it's up to you. You want to add water and then go in and attach them or do you want to score them. Again this will depend on your clay and how soft or dry it is. I'm thinking I'll just use it here. So I'm just scoring one side dipping my isolated driven water scoring on one side. Because my clay is soft I could have just gone in with some water but again I'm scoring it a little bit and then I'm placing these two like all of these cuts. I'm going to be overlapping these. This is not just an overlap at the bevels just at the bevels that we cut but slightly inside. So I'm pushing the two petals together. I'm overlapping them like this. Now how your flower turns out how the bowl turns out will depend on how much of an overlap you have between the two petals. So if you overlap just slightly you'll have a bigger flower. If you overlap more then you'll have a more narrow looking flower bowl right. So that's the only thing and make a few of these to see what shape you like. Okay so right now I'm just bringing these two together and kind of tacking them in. I'm not pressing too much just eyeballing how much I need to you know overlap and press them together. Again these are flowers in more organic shape. I'm not being very precise about exactly that I need overlap and things like that. Right now I've just tagged all of them together. You can see they're just kind of tacked together. I haven't attached them really. Now I'll start attaching where I'll start pressing these together. Now you can see I'm holding on to this and I'm just pressing it together. Okay I'm pressing it together from the inside and the outside as well. Just pinching it together like this. Okay you can do it while it's sitting on the board it's better. Right so we just do that pinching from the inside and the outside making sure the two edges are actually you know sitting together first step. And there is a bit of overlap so you have to press a little bit. Your bowl will stretch out a little bit that's okay. Okay so once that step is done then I'm going to start blending these together. Now if you see you can see this overlap here and you can see that there's a petal coming in. You can leave it at that if you want but what I like to do is again with the damp fingers just go in and blend these two together. This will obviously make sure that my join is secure. It's nicely done. Okay this again I'm just adding a little bit of moisture to my fingers and then going over the clay surface making sure it's nice and smooth. There you go. This also if you need just add a little bit of moisture backing. Because we added the corn starch that does dry out the clay a tiny bit. Okay there you can see there and this is the last one. These are all blended in. Okay we have to do the same thing on the outside as well. Just blending all. Now I am holding on to this in such a manner because I have to show you what I'm doing but when you are doing it please see I'm just blending it together. When you're doing it please place it here get down to the table level and then you know just blend the sides together. This is just to make sure that it doesn't crack and it's nicely blended. The two petals are like holding together and every time I go in I'm just damping my fingers because my clay is drying out thanks to the corn starch. But if your clay is really soft you don't have to you know use damp fingers. This makes sure that our join is nice and secure and everything is nicely blended. That is done. Let me just show you. Okay and you'll see the texture from all of these areas has gone away. While I'm here I'm just making sure I blend all of these edges in. Okay that's done. Now you know what you're going to do. We'll take our silicone tip tool. I'm just cleaning this off and I'm going to make those you know marks again which I just blended in. So this is an easy step you know you don't have to be very precise because a lot of this is going to get covered with the glaze. But at the same time I don't want that flat plain area there. I'm just adding these. You can see. Let me show you here. So with my silicone tip tool just randomly adding these lines. Now with this texture this random lines they work really well. There you go. It also blends that in even further. You can see it's getting old. My tool and then just keep going. This is already done. Okay you see I'm not being very precise and that's okay. And you're doing the exact same thing on the outside as well. I'm going to have to hold this and show it to you. Just cleaning the tip here and then you can see I'm not being precise at all. Just making sure you have those lines there. Now I'm doing this so you can see. When you do this please make it you know it's sitting on its board. It's sitting on the table and then get down to the table level to your eye level and table level and keep making these marks. And don't worry you'll have some clay crumbs coming up because you're making these lines. We've cleaned them up once our pot has thickened up. Right now it's being soft so we're not going to do any of the cleanup stuff. We're just making the lines because this will be difficult to do later on. Okay so once I have done this you know the line work on the outside. Next step is just cleaning off and you know blending in the edges here. All these joints over here right here. I will take my silicone tip tool and clean silicone tip tool and go over all of these joints here. You'll see a little bit of a gap right here. Just take this and blend it in. Okay I'm just dipping it in water a little bit taking the excess off on the sponge and then just coming in here to blend these two in nicely. Okay if you need to add a little bit of moisture you can do that. Like I'm just dipping this in water and then taking the excess off on my sponge and then coming in here and just blending these two together. Okay this is done. Next step is just cleaning the inside a little bit. I'm going to press this and clean this up. Just the center a little bit. Okay the other thing we can do right now is shape our flower. If you want this to be a little bit more you know rounder like coming in like this you can do that. Just pressing everything in a little bit. This is coming off. Okay so you shape your bowl the way you want it and another thing you can do it again this is quite a you know an organic shape. It's not very precise but one thing you can do is just lift and see from the side if it's looking uniform. Just check that and one last thing that you can do is before you let it set up a little bit is take a synthetic brush just dip it in water take the excess off and again I'm going to go over these joints here. If I see any gaps I'm going to just take care of those right now. Because while the clay is soft you can still do any of that little bit of the cleanup work, joining work if that's required. Okay that's done. Let me quickly check on the outside as well. It looks good. We will be doing the cleanup. We will be doing the cleanup in a while. You know we'll go back in and clean everything up. Right now just have to let this set up. Okay I think I'm good now. This looks okay to me. Now I'll let this set up a little bit the point where I can lift it and add my little puttering at the base. Okay so I'll be doing that. I still need to add that. I haven't done it yet. That'll happen once this has set up a little bit. This has also had some time to set up and then we can join the two together and it should be okay. And while this is getting dried, while it's drying out I'm going to quickly just add my signature to the base here. I have this now because this is small my signature is kind of longer than this. So I have these little top little signatures that I've made. This is just my initial jk. I'm going to press this in and right at the center just making my it just says jk that's all. Okay that's done. So that's my puttering all the foot feet done. I'll be making the rest of my flower flower bowls as well and once they are set up and ready we'll start attaching them. So here's our flower dish. It has stiffened up quite a bit and you can see I can easily hold it in my hand without warping, without distorting the shape and this is a good time when you can add our base. Now if you don't want to add your base it's you know perfectly all right you can use it as it is. I like that little lip. Let me show you. I like this little lip at the base. So I'm going to be adding my feet, little foot actually just one round circle. So this is just a circle that we cut out with my signature stamp inside. Taking this, dipping my serrated ribbon water and pouring it aggressively. My clay is not really leather hard. It's close to that you know it's close to leather hard. I think it's almost a leather hard but I'm pouring it rather aggressively. I'm scoring it really aggressively and you can see there's enough slip generated right here. I'm going to do the same thing here as well. Now if your clay has dried out a little bit you can add additional slip and go in. You know there's no rule against it. I just work like this and if it works for me I'm just going to go ahead and I score really aggressively. You can see how aggressive I am with my scoring but I'm holding on to the pot very lightly, delicately. Now I'm going to try and find the center. My stamp is not centered but I'm going to try and find the center here so it doesn't look off once it's sitting straight. Okay I think that looks good. Now I'm going to hold on to the pot from one side and the pot from the other, the ring and just press along the side. Make sure it's all attached properly. I'm just going around pressing the foot in. Okay and then I'm going to place it here and then press in the center. Be careful not to press too much. Make sure you're just covering the foot and not pressing around this area otherwise you'll break your piece. I'm just making sure it's nice and smooth and then we bring in our silicone tip tool and just go around cleaning the edge off. So you see how soft my clay is. Not too soft, not too swift, just at the right moisture level that I can add this foot ring, hold on to the pot, add the foot ring without distorting it. That is done. So now what I'll do is once we've added the foot I'm going to quickly clean it up with my damp sponge. Just go over the sides here, cleaning it up. If there are any clay crumbs, if you want you can do the cleanup right here or wait for your pot to stiffen up a little bit more. I'm going to do a little bit of cleanup just here and probably come back in. Okay and you see right now it's quite stiff. My pot is really fairly stiff so I'm going to go in and clean up the rim as well, the edges as well. So the again make sure your sponge is damp, not drippy. You don't want water dripping through your clay and pulling in one particular area because that's going to cause cracking and all kinds of issues. So just taking this, I'm just holding on to this so you can see what I'm doing but basically just going over the edges making sure they're nice and smooth and there are no clay crumbs there. Just going inside as well to take care of any clay crumbs. You can do this a little later as well when it's closer to bone dry but just doing it right now. Okay we do it on this side and we do the same thing on the other side as well. Just turn it around and get rid of any unevenness, any clay bits, any marks or basically clay crumbs because we made all these marks with our silicone tip tool. So you'll find some clay crumbs on the surface, take care of those. Like I said you can let your clay set up a little bit before you do that. So now my flower dish is finally ready. This is what it looks like. I'm happy with this. This will dry slowly under a sheet of plastic because sometimes they can still warp even though it's a small piece it can still warp. Like I have one here which is yeah this one if you see this has warped. I know it doesn't doesn't look that obvious but you know probably if I show you this way it's warped this way. It's a little bit more narrow than I'd like it to be so you know it can still warp. So just be careful. Again dry it slowly under a plastic then we will put it through a bisque firing. Once it's bisque fired and ready then we'll get down to glazing. And if you'd like to see the glazing tutorial please let me know in the comments below. If you like the video please like and subscribe. It really helps our channel. And I'll see you next week with another tutorial. Bye.