My YouTube video this weekend is all about spouts… from pulling them, good ways to practice, optimal rim thickness and even how you can use butter to fix how one pours in a dire situation. I even demonstrate a few other shapes of spouts that are outside of my repertoire, to give a better sense of the breadth of styles. As always, you can watch the fully narrated film via the link in my Linktree! I also preface this film with the fact that making spouts is likely my weakest skill when it comes to making pots. I learn more about them every time I make them and producing videos like this helps even more, as I have to inspect my technique and think about ways of conveying skill and how to make a lip that pours neatly, which frankly, is a real challenge. Thanks for watching!

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Accidentally stepping on the wheel’s pedal seems to be a yearly occurrence, although miraculously this bowl survived unscathed, it just needed a tiny bit of correcting on the foot where it was bashed from being slung against the tray. Here’s another bowl, this time made with a coarse red stoneware body that, as you can see, I didn’t quite wedge properly, although the only remnant of pink lies in the foot and will eventually be hidden by glaze. I start by refining the inside, scraping the walls, straightening the rim section and making the interior a lovely smooth curve. Then I tackle the outside, with steel tools mainly, as I’m still a little worried about using tungsten carbide blades with this gritty body, but I’m sure they’ll survive. Most of the form is left relatively rough, as I don’t burnish it, but I do smooth the very bottom of the pot, the base, the part that will make contact with the table, as ultimately, I’d rather it didn’t scratch wood if dragged across a tabletop. My maker’s mark goes in, supported from either side so it doesn’t deform the foot, and that’s the vessel finished, for now. I’ll sling some plastic sheeting over it and let it dry slowly for a few days before letting it turn fully bone dry, whereupon it can be biscuit fired to 1000ºC. #fail #blooper #blooperreel #pottery #ceramics #clay

I’ve always wanted to try this, and no, this isn’t an advert for the butter. Not everything I make works and spouts can be notoriously tricky things to get right and this is one way to deal with the problem, albeit definitely not a permanent solution. In a way, this short video is a teaser for my longer YouTube film that’s coming out this Sunday that’s all about making spouts, how to do it, good methods of practice, how to fix common errors and how to slather butter on pots, not that this really needs a tutorial… Narrated for added flavour, would you folks like hearing my voice more on this platform, or do you prefer that I save if for my longer format films on YouTube? #butter #satisfying #pottery #functionalpottery #fail #asmr

Considering how coarse this red stoneware is, it trims beautifully. The clay tears in a spiralling fashion, especially in the centre of the foot-well and the gritty texture makes for a very tactile vessel, to a degree where I’m considering to leave this bowl unglazed. It’ll be fired to cone ten, so the body will vitrify, the particles of clay, the platelets, fusing so much that water can no longer enter the body. I ditch my tungsten tools for gritty clay like this, does anyone else do that? I’ve had some opposing comments on YouTube about it. I’ve always been advised not to use tungsten carbide trimmers with very coarse clays, I even have one tool that has a tiny chip out of the blade, but I can’t be sure whether that occurred when trimming, or when I placed the tool back in the box and the metal collided with another tungsten blade. Either way, since then, trimming coarse clay means using the cheaper, steel tools, which I can achieve the same finish with, it just takes longer. I say this a lot, but purchasing expensive trimming tools won’t make you a better turner. I think it has more to do with your practical ability and skill, as a competent trimmer can use relatively blunt tools and achieve the same level of finish, it’s about how you use them. The main thing that’s affected is the time it takes to trim, as these steel tools carve through the clay slowly and impart more pressure on the vessel itself, meaning you could distort the shape of the pot if you’re pressing in too firmly. Yet, at the same time, tungsten tools come with similar difficulties. They tend to catch more, chatter, if you make a mistake and gouge too harshly the pot will be decimated and if you drop the trimmer on the floor, well, there’s a chance it’ll shatter. I like both, both have their uses and both remain strong implements in my trimming arsenal. #stoneware #satisfying #pottery #ceramics #handmade #potteryvideos

This week’s YouTube video shows the first steps of a new clay and glaze test with metal, bronze, inclusions. It’s a follow-up from my last round of experiments where I discuss a potential idea that produces a more subtle result. If you’d like to find out more, and watch some mixing of clays, throwing and trimming, you can find the link to the full video via the Linktree in my profile’s biography. In my previous round of tests, the bronze filings ended up dominating the pale green crackle glaze, making it appear somewhat ill-ridden, specked in blots of blood red. The idea is to use this new coarse red stoneware clay, (PF 690), with a crimson clay and with the metal wedged into the body. The copper red flashes produced by the bronze are practically the same colour as the glaze, so they should appear scattered quietly across the surface and with the addition of the red clay, that fires to crimson-brown, they should make for some rather new and interesting vessels. Yet, it’ll be a while until these pots are fired, as I’ve just concluded a reduction firing cycle, so consider this a little tease, a film to get the ball rolling. Thanks for watching! #clay #glaze #stoneware #potteryvideos #ceramics #oddlysatisfying