Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This weekend's YouTube video covers the creation of these much larger, angular bowls. Made from approximately 5 kg of clay, around 11 lbs, centred from two lumps, thrown, intensively trimmed, awkwardly glazed and finally reduction fired to cone ten, (1290ºC), in a manner that hopefully preservers the circularity of the foot-ring.
That has been my greatest challenge with these pots and it's what irritatingly has made producing them feel a bit like gambling lately, as part of me knows that the finished objects will have a flaw somewhere in them. The thing is, with all the weight pressing down on such a narrow, tall base, there's a lot that can potentially go wrong, causing it to warp. At the same time, with so much surface area, any defect in the glazing will be glaringly obvious in the finished product. This means that in order for these to be successful, SO much has to go right and ultimately, that's the hardest thing about creating work that is so minimal.
When you're creating pottery that is inherently a bit wobbly and is glazed in an internationally rough and naive manner, there's room for subtle irregularities to creep in and often they just match the aesthetic of the rest of the object, but with extremely minimal work that just isn't the case. These tiny errors come back to bite you and thus, as a maker, you have to work extremely diligently and carefully... All of that is discussed, and much more, together with a potential solution to the troublesome, warping feet.
Thanks so much for taking the time to watch. It really means a lot and it supports my small business more than you'd think.
📖 • ORDER MY BOOK: geni.us/bymyhands
🏺 • You may also be interested in my 'A Beginner's Guide' series, which you can find here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2WJhtTF0eGhQwf8g2LHcom_KrvJpH_JT
Timecodes:
0:00 - Introduction
1:57 - Preparing the clay, weighing and wedging it
2:52 - Centring the clay
5:03 - Throwing the base bowl forms
11:05 - How I carefully dry them to leather hard
12:55 - Trimming the bowls
20:08 - How to trim using tungsten carbide blades
23:57 - Making large pots versus small pots
25:05 - Biscuit firing the bowls to 1000ºC
26:03 - Waxing the bowls foot-rings
26:54 - Glazing the bowl
28:40 - Fettling clean the glazed surface
30:42 - Packing the pot into gas kiln & reduction firing it to 1290ºC
32:21 - Unpacking the kiln
32:47 - Polishing the bowls base and the finished piece!
•
Find out much more via the link below!
https://linktr.ee/floriangadsby
•
Get in touch here: floriangadsby.com/contact
Sign up to my newsletter here: floriangadsby.com/newsletter
This weekend's YouTube video covers the creation of these much larger, angular bowls. Made from approximately 5 kg of clay, around 11 lbs, centred from two lumps, thrown, intensively trimmed, awkwardly glazed and finally reduction fired to cone ten, (1290ºC), in a manner that hopefully preservers the circularity of the foot-ring.
That has been my greatest challenge with these pots and it's what irritatingly has made producing them feel a bit like gambling lately, as part of me knows that the finished objects will have a flaw somewhere in them. The thing is, with all the weight pressing down on such a narrow, tall base, there's a lot that can potentially go wrong, causing it to warp. At the same time, with so much surface area, any defect in the glazing will be glaringly obvious in the finished product. This means that in order for these to be successful, SO much has to go right and ultimately, that's the hardest thing about creating work that is so minimal.
When you're creating pottery that is inherently a bit wobbly and is glazed in an internationally rough and naive manner, there's room for subtle irregularities to creep in and often they just match the aesthetic of the rest of the object, but with extremely minimal work that just isn't the case. These tiny errors come back to bite you and thus, as a maker, you have to work extremely diligently and carefully... All of that is discussed, and much more, together with a potential solution to the troublesome, warping feet.
Thanks so much for taking the time to watch. It really means a lot and it supports my small business more than you'd think.
📖 • ORDER MY BOOK: geni.us/bymyhands
🏺 • You may also be interested in my 'A Beginner's Guide' series, which you can find here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2WJhtTF0eGhQwf8g2LHcom_KrvJpH_JT
Timecodes:
0:00 - Introduction
1:57 - Preparing the clay, weighing and wedging it
2:52 - Centring the clay
5:03 - Throwing the base bowl forms
11:05 - How I carefully dry them to leather hard
12:55 - Trimming the bowls
20:08 - How to trim using tungsten carbide blades
23:57 - Making large pots versus small pots
25:05 - Biscuit firing the bowls to 1000ºC
26:03 - Waxing the bowls foot-rings
26:54 - Glazing the bowl
28:40 - Fettling clean the glazed surface
30:42 - Packing the pot into gas kiln & reduction firing it to 1290ºC
32:21 - Unpacking the kiln
32:47 - Polishing the bowls base and the finished piece!
•
Find out much more via the link below!
https://linktr.ee/floriangadsby
•
Get in touch here: floriangadsby.com/contact
Sign up to my newsletter here: floriangadsby.com/newsletter
