Still Playing With Texture

 You will notice that there are no pictures of glazing in this post.  I didn't have anything to glaze this week.  I could spend all my effort on making new stuff.

I'm still messing around with texture.

I don't know what this is.  Weird vase? Even more weird bowl?  Just something interesting to look at?

Mugs!  Because you can never make too many mugs.

A pitcher.  I should have choked it in a little more narrow above the textured part and/or flared the top out a little bit more.  I swear, I think that about every pitcher I've ever made.  Getting the handle on it actually makes it look better.  It was pretty bad pre-handle.  Hey!  I'm learning and learning is about trying something new that might not work out the first time (or first dozen times) you try it.

This small bowl made me pretty happy, so I decided to do more.  

Here's my next effort.  This is about 4 pounds of clay.  

It started out like this.  Well, no.  This is about step 2 of 3.  I took extra pictures of the next one...

I start with a relatively thick cylinder.  I put a line near the top so I'd know where to stop cutting in the facets and trimmed away a little bit of the clay at the bottom.  I also made this cylinder wider and not as tall as the first one so I'd get a wide, shallow bowl.

See?  Thick - so there's lots of clay with which to work.  (Notice that I did not end that sentence with a preposition.)

About here I realized that professionals probably have someone else to take pictures for them while their hands are messy.  Work with clay.  Wash hands.  Dry with towel.  Take picture.  Repeat.  This picture I actually took with my left hand because that is my right hand holding the rib.  You may be impressed if you like.  

Where was I?  Oh yes.  I cut the facets with the rib.  When my left hand isn't taking pictures, it is inside the pot applying pressure to keep the rib in the right hand from destroying the pot as I worked.  Make sense?  

I went all the way around with the cutting.  

By now, I've thrown out the wash hands step and gone straight to wipe off on towel.  That was a pretty gross towel and my phone ended up with a good bit of clay smeared on it.

Finally, using my left hand, a sponge, and a throwing stick, I stretched the piece out wide to make a bowl.  It would be cool to show you that part, but I'd have to have help to make that happen.  (Note to self: That is a good idea for video next time there are other people around who can help me.)  All the pressure has to come from the inside on this step.  The outside of the pot didn't get touched again.  Well, that's not completely true.  I did use both hands to work on and smooth out the rim after all that distorting.  I was pretty pleased with the end result there, but I hoped to get those facets to twist when I stretched out the bowl.  If you are good, they twist.  

One last try. This time I used a smaller amount of clay (about 2.5 pounds instead of 4) and I began with more of a cone shape.  

This time, I used the corner of a plastic gift card to cut the texture.

And I got a little bit of twist!  I need to start with thicker walls and rims so that I can stretch the clay farther.  The more you stretch, the more it twists.  At least I think that's what happens.