Wheel Trio

This trio of bowls were my first attempt at making something on the wheel. I really enjoyed learning the process of throwing, with centering, creating an opening, forming the base, then pulling and shaping the clay into a meaningful piece.

As with anything new, I found this challenging, especially the centering. This step is crucial as if the clay is slightly off centre then the whole pot will be wonky and risks collapsing before it is fully formed.

I also found controlling the shape of the bowls challenging and they all ended up as slightly different shapes. I did however manage to intentionally change the lips on the bowls, with one lip forming outwards and another having a lovely edge that slightly slanted inwards.

With the glazing, I was again inspired by Japanese sumi paintings and enjoyed using a black underglaze to create these marks. Unfortunately, I applied the transparent glaze too thick, which resulted in some cracking in the glaze. To resolve this, I have put the bowls for a second firing to hopefully fuse the cracks together and get a nice smooth glazed finished.

Overall, I enjoyed this experience on the wheel and I am very pleased to have created some useful bowls. I am looking forward to developing my technique and experimenting with creating some differently shaped pieces.​