Why Repetition Making is SO Important @floriangadsby

Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

There are so many small tricks that you develop when making pottery, some are always useful, others are more situational, a few you only whip out when you really mess up throwing a pot. I plan on making a much longer YouTube video that discusses many of these subtle techniques, for instance, spinning the wheel as the vessel is lifted away, or how you can compress the rim in the same moment that you lift it, nullifying an undulation in the rim you can feel developing.

Many of these you only out through intense repetition, as it takes encountering them hundreds of times before they become second nature, or for you to simply be able to react to the clay in a certain way, recognising what the issue is and how to fix it.

The joy is that this is a never-ending task, as each specific shape will lead to a whole trove of methodologies appearing, what’s even better is that every thrower or hand-builder or slip-caster, will find fixes to these tiny problems in their own way, adding to their unique language of pot making.

#mug #pottery #ceramic #crafts #wheelthrownpottery #clay

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$Throwing 1000’s of Mugs When I’m making mugs, I like to make lots at once. Generally, this means spending a week or two producing 100-200 pieces, whilst juggling a number of other tasks, mainly, as I feel as if by working on so many at once, they end up being more consistent and I become faster as I’m repeating the creation process so many times in a row. It sort of feels like practice and I can always sense a difference in my ability at the beginning of a mug making session, versus how naturally they are formed and handled towards the end, after I’ve warmed up, essentially. I throw mine from 300 grams of clay, (plus or minus 10 for speedier weighing out), to 11 cm tall by 8.5 cm wide, give or take a few millimetres. I don’t mind if one is a smidge below my throwing gauge’s pointer as I pull up the walls, or if one is fractionally too wide, as these minute discrepancies will barely be noticeable once the pot has been trimmed, handled, glazed and fired. What I do care about though are the proportions and the slightly tapering shape. It can hard to see, but these pots are marginally wider at the base and then they slope inwards ever so slightly as they reach upwards. It’s subtle but it makes a big difference and so, if I notice that a mug is too straight, or that it flared out towards the top, it’ll be instantly destroyed if I can’t fix that during the throwing process itself. It’s good to be brutal, you can never be too precious, essentially with vessels as simple as these are. Lifting off these thinly walled pots in the perhaps the trickiest part. There’s a bit of a knack to it, (that’s better explained in my YouTube video that specifically covers this step), but it means I can heap more onto each ware board, which means I don’t have to use batts and for a pot like this that means I end up saving a bit more space in the studio. Space, as you quickly realise, is perhaps one of the most importance things about a potter’s studio. It’s a bottleneck you’ll often run into and you need more space during the production stage, as pots need room to dry and components eat up shelves before they’re assembled. 100 more to go… #mugs #handmade #craft #wheelthrownpottery #pottery$

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