How to Throw a Plate on The Potter's Wheel: For Beginners!

1. Intro! How to Throw a Plate!: Hi Skillshare, I'm Molly January. I'm a ceramic artist and teacher coming to you from Richmond, Virginia. I'm currently a high-school ceramics teacher where I teach beginning level ceramics, both wheel throwing and handling. I also have my own strengths business, Molly Sanger's ceramics, where I make my own wears, some of which had been seen with Lizzo most recently in her death campaign for body positivity, where she's naked with just my butt mud covering her. Boom. She also had them in her Vogue interview where she cheers with the interviewer. My work has also found that the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the cork gallery here in Richmond, Virginia. In business, I've also made partnerships with other pottery companies like LL kiln, diamond core tools, and speed ball bats, where we've just released the black Molly seniors ceramics bat. I've also started a membership called thrown with Molly, where client Uzziah lasts from all skill levels and Oliver the world join weekly to talk all things clay. If you're looking to join a community, looking at further, be sure to visit my website to learn more and sign up. I've been learning about ceramics since I became a ceramics major in college. I can't stop learning, taking workshops from all over the world from the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado. Do you flying all the way to Athens, Greece to learn about naked raccoon firings with Galli, Galli, this art through Skillshare. I'm really excited to bring all of my knowledge and tips and tricks to you to help you have a successful time in your studio practice. In this video, I'm gonna show you how to throw the perfect plate if I compress surface and a smooth lift. Let's get into it. 2. Part 1: Prepping your clay and the wheel!: Alright, let's get into it how to throw a plate first and around out your West followed play with the plate. I think it is very important and a must-haves have around and bats these hook right on your wheel. So when you're done throwing your plate, you don't have to worry about touching it to get it off the wheel, you'd pick the whole bat up and take your plate off safely. Keep its shape. Now that my bat is on the wheel, I'm gonna take my tasks into an egg shaped ball, was and gently place it right in the center of my back. I'm going take my dry hands. You're always want to start dry the drag and drop and working on there and make sure it's stuck. Next, I'm going to tap it with my open palms down into the client, but also up into account as it's been slab, protect, tap, tap, tap, tapping to get back tones started. Because my first step is gonna be to comb the clay up and down so that then I can center it easily. 3. Part 2: Coning Up and Down!: All right, To cone the clay up and down. We're gonna use our bucket of water and plenty of sponge now that we know it's stuck on there and now that the glaze been tapped into a code, my left hand is the boss for coning up and down. That means that my left elbow is in my hip socket. So as I leaned board, the whole form leans into the clay. My left hand is flat and I'm using the palm to the thumb flux up into a cone. If the thumb wraps to the other side of the clay, It's gonna rip it off. If you dig in with your fingers, it's going to make impressions. So the palm leaning thumb is straight up. Meanwhile, the right hand pulls a wet sponge. I like to start by pressing my fingers on the bat, latch my thumb onto my Boston and then drag and squeeze my right fingertips into that clay. Coming up with the clay, squeeze it, let it rotate, come up, squeeze it, let it rotate, come up, squeeze it, let it rotate, come up, squeeze it, let it rotate, come up all the way to the top. Hold the client and let it rotate, rotate, rotate, slowly, remove your hands. Now you can see all the inconsistencies in my ball of clay. And that's why we take the time to cone up and down so that these inconsistencies don't show up later. Now to come down, I'm gonna drop a little water. I love a sponge and my right hand. So as I need more, I can squeeze it and get some more water. Left hand is still the boss. So I'm gonna come up to the top of the clay supported with my palm. Meanwhile, my right hand is going to squeeze onto my left boss hand. The right-hand is making a fist that's going to push down on the center of the class. So hands are connected left-hand side boss, right hand is squeezing water if I needed and patiently pushing down. Speed is fast, hands are slow and patiently pushing towards the wheel as I push down. And it's important to re-establish that cone because as I cone up, I need a point. Otherwise, if I clean up, I'm gonna get a crater every time entrapped air. As I'm hugging my left boss hand and as my boss Ian is leaning into this. If the right hand as you get close to the back and open up and drop pressure from the top all the way the base of the class and then rotate, rotate, rotate. You know, I'm at the base because you can see the circle against the back. Now that can happen differently. I kinda take it like a prayer hand and drop my right hand like prayer hands all the way down to the base. You can also, as you come up, Let's cut off again. Notice my right hand squeezes onto that left so I can get some leverage to squeeze my right fingertips into my left hand all the way to the top, relaxing my pressure as a thins out so that I keep this continuous cone continuously from wiser a little bit more narrow. Ramp my sponge again, load it up, water, hug my thumb patiently. My right fist hand pushes that clay down. And as I approached the bat, another way you can down other than dropping into prayer hand because I can open up and put these fingers on the top and gently press the mirror and that gently say I'm pressing firmly, patiently, patiently dropped from the top. Dropping the top, dropped from the top. Let it rotate droplet and rotate drop. Let it rotate drop until you get all the way to the bat. Don't stop before you get to the bat, look for that black circle, rotate, rotate, rotate, slow release. And already you can see how smooth my clay is getting and how pretty much centered it is. Alright, let's put up one more time and then we'll talk about is entering some squeezing the glutes up speed as my friend relaxing my pressure as it comes up so they don't rip it off. Thumb is up at that cone, right fingertips are pushing in, right thumbs connected to the left thumb, rotate, rotate, rotate, slow release. All right. Let's talk about centering. Centering snacks after you're, after you're coding up and down looks really smooth and your clay feels prepared, you're ready to center. 4. Part 3: Centering!: Sintering, you're gonna cone down. So left hand is anchored in your hip, right hands hugging that thumb. Speed is your friend, your patient live pushing down patiently pushing down. And instead of dropping into a cone shape. And make sure the left-hand is the boss because if it takes a break, you're gonna get a mushroom every single time you don't want that much. It happening. So lean into that left palm, right hand pushing down, right-hand switch down and tell this left bat until this left hand reaches the bat. I'm holding onto the thumb. I'm pressing down with the right-hand. If I need to, I can open up my right hand to get a flat surface. And at this point when my left hand is reached the bat to the black circle, I can really open up those fingertips and lean this palm, right? I have a little groove at the base. We don't want that went to lean in, create a flat surface on the outside of the leg while that right hand contains it from growing back up at that left-hand lanes on the right-hand has opened up with a karate chop holding the centre of the clay, left hand is leaning into it and hold it and let it rotate, rotate, rotate. So all the wobbles go away. I have a loose bag pin. A lot or a little tricky. Hopefully you don't but just lean into it, the palm lanes into it. Right hands flat on top. Hands are connected, rotate, rotate, rotate and then slow, release. All right. I'm going to just get the slip off. Now that we have cone up and down, we have centered, it's time to decide what do we want to make. And today we're making the plate. 5. Part 4: What Makes a Plate, a Plate?!: In a plate is about two things. It is about we'll sauce gets stuck and we'll have meatball rolloff. This is what I mean to make your plate from the centered form, we can add more water. Left hand is still the boss. Right hand is still holding to the left thumb and it's open like a karate chop, catching the whole surface of the globe. At this point, the right-hand is now allowed to press down further. As I press down, I'm not gonna press this down to look like an actual plate, thin plate. I'm going to press it down to about this much thickness is going to look like this wet sponge. Right hand presses down. Speed is my friend. The hands are connected now as the right-hand presses down and it opens up my hands out to open up towards me together, staying connected, left-hand has to remain the boss. Hands come back towards me and keeping the center of that claim still slightly thick one more time pressing from that center, the right hands was pressing down the left-hand. Those keeping this play from getting wobbly all the way towards main hold it, wrote it or let it rotate, rotate, rotate and slow-release. So I like to keep my plates pretty thick so I have something to trim and somewhere to wire cut from here would sauce gets stuck? Maybe you had a fingernail mark. You want to make sure sauce won't get stuck. After you've achieved the thickness that you want. We're gonna take a wrung out sponge, elbows against their bodies. Start in the center, let it rotate, come over to three o'clock. Let it rotate, come over and let it rotate, come over, let it rotate. The more patient you are, the more centered states you go fast, you get it off center and spirals. You just want to hold it, let it rotate, hold it, let it rotate, hold it, let it rotate, pull the levers. You can even do a little pressure right there. All right, so it's sauce gets stuck, know it is nice and smooth. And also anytime you stretch clay out wide and then it doesn't like that at once. I have issues later. To prevent any future issues you need to compress the clay. 6. Part 5: Compressing the Surface: Anytime you stretch clay out wide and then it doesn't like that at once. I have issues later. To prevent any future issues you need to compress the clay. Compressing the clay is when you can take a rib tool, take eyelid, go curved edge on the clock. Now if I hold this away from me at three o'clock, the clay is gonna easily spin under it. If I come over here, it's gonna get gouged out and make a mess. So make sure you hold this. I like to have my elbows against my body to the right of center flared away, curved edge and it just drops right on. This is compressing the clay, taking that risk tool, smoothing out the surface all the way to center and back and just letting the clay run under it. This is helping to strengthen those clay particles and hopefully avoiding cracks later on. Compressed, compressed compress. After you do that, you might have created more grooves for sauce to get stuck. You can clean out your sponge, makes sure everything's nice and smooth. Now the next question would a meat ball roll off? 7. Part 6: Establishing the Lip!: The next question, would a meat ball roll off? Yes. What's going to hold the food on? Send to establish a lift. The right-hand is now the boss. The right hand is going to take a wet sponge at the bad at three o'clock. Stay on the bat so that then you can glide to the clay and press at the base to get a little lift as the right-hand starts to press my elbows against my body, that clay is going to start to lift. And at this point the left-hand can connect and treat that clay, the lip like a bowl or a cylinder, whatever you prefer. The right-hand squeezing up the base inside hands, kind of gliding across and then squeezing onto that thickness to create the lip that you'd like. You want the lip to be a little more pronounced than you think because it is going to shrink down. So this, I'm gonna, I'm gonna squeeze onto it one more time, do one more pull, glide over, squeezed with that right-hand, getting that clay up, let it rotate. I'm gonna go ahead and drop this index finger on the lip all at one time to compress it and let it rotate, rotate, rotate, slow release in SaaS gets stuck and it would a meatball roll-off, elbows against your body's starting the center, leave this dry, get all the slip off and you can see a plate happens pretty quickly. 8. Part 7: Using the Wooden Knife!: Then you could use a wooden knife to pre-trip and angle away some of that thickness at the base. You're going to hold this like a pencil. However, you hold a pencil. And then at the back-end of the tool, here's our knife making the cut. We don't want to hold it like this or like this. We want to be able to cut with display. Secondhand is gonna hold on top, elbows against your body and to the right I'm going to just make a line. I'm going to touch the wooden knife where I want to make my cut. And now that I've made my line, I can push a little bit, hold on really tight and just push a little bit, hold on really tight and push a little bit. And then boom, I'm at the back. Once you reach the bat, you can take a clean needle tool, cut through that little band and underneath. Now boom, you have less play to trim later. And you started shaping the foot of that plate that can get recycled. Now I'd go ahead at this point, just knew that line I made with a run-out sponge. And my trick for flights plates are easy to throw. It happens really quick. In fact, let me show you a trick. 9. Part 8: A Trick for Centering a Plate!: If you're having a hard time getting centered, Let's say that if your plates off center sake, but boop, boop, boop, it's off-center. What you can do is once you have it flat, once you know sauce won't get stuck, you take your elbows, you make sure it's about C right now is kind of rounding so I can press a little more pressure here, let it rotate, press little refresher, let it rotate. And then I can kind of ease up over here. And I go back to center, making sure it's flat. And then if you have a little off-center an edge, you could just take your wooden knife tool, hold it nice and tight and drop like a record player wherever you want to cut off the off centered part patient linkage patiently. Boom. Take your needle tool, cut off the off centered lip. Cut off, cut underneath. Now again, you would just make sure it's compressed. Use your rib tool to the right, rounded edge centre, over to three compressed, compressed, compressed with sauce gets stuck. Make sure it's smooth. Put a little lip right hands, the boss anchored against my hip, pushing that clay to lift that lip inside hand, you'd go ahead and squeeze back to form that lip however you'd like it to be, compress it so it's not too sharp. It's also get stuck right there. If I already get this water, I will place where sauce would get stuck. So you want a elbows inch body made sure that surface is flat. Sauce won't get stuck in a neat bow, won't roll-off. Then I could wooden knife cut again. Hold on tight elbows against your body patiently for us patiently fresh. Get your clean needle tool cut underneath. Remove this extra clay less trim later. So that's one trick how to cut it off if it's Austin are but here's another trick. 10. Part 9: Wire Cutting!: Here's another trick with plates. You have to now be really patient and let this dry to a nice leather hard before we trim the bottom. Now with a bowl or a cylinder, I do flip it as soon as the lipids dry, I wire cut it again and I flip it over so the book contract, but with a plane, I don't flip it over. So after I'm done throwing nice and tight, I take a clean wire cutter, dragged my thumbs all the way underneath to release this plate from the bat. I don't want to touch my plate so I pick the whole BAD up, but I've wire cut it now. And then I'll wait a few hours and I will wire cut it again, leaving it right side up, then I might wire cut it a third time. Now, what I'm looking for is this center to feel leather hard. I don't flip my plates. I just wire cut them a few times so that as they dry and as they shrink, they will release from the bat and not get cracked along the way as they shrink and dry. Now it's all about patients, but I hope this video helped you on how to throw a plate. 11. Part 10: The Challenge!: So now it's all about patience, but I hope this video helped you on how to throw a plate and I can't wait to see post and share yours. Stay tuned for my trimming videos and let me know what other videos you'd like to see.