As a conclusion or a wrap up to our throwing and trimming the bowl, I just wanted to review a couple points and talk about a couple of things that to go over. Remember when you're trimming the bowls, that the outside of the shape should echo the inside of the shape. So when you're initially throwing the bowls, always throw to the inside the inside should, the inside should be just how you would like to finish product or quality to be and then you can echo that shape on the outside. Another thing to keep in mind is that transition between the floor and the wall is always so important when you're talking about any type of open form whether it's a bowl or a plate, anything where the viewer is going to be seen not seeing the inside that transition is critical. If there's an awkward line or an awkward flow there is going to break up the flow.

The entire piece. Now as we're trimming the bowls, I made just a couple standard points about you know, removing trimming lines and things like this. But of course these are starting points and they can always be altered depending on the aesthetic that you're going for. So I brought three bowls in here that I made there from home, just to take a look. So this piece here is a little looser bowl it has more organic flow to it. So the foot that I put on here has these slight dents in it to continue that organic loose flow of it so the entire piece has some unity where this piece is a much tighter piece so we're not so it makes sense to have those that loose organic foot on it.

So this has a tighter foot. You can almost consider it an elongated foot here with an undercut which is really going to give it that nice dark shadow and really lifted up or separated from the floor right in here. So it has a real light, elegant feel weightless feel to it. And this being the shape that it is it is that more delicate bowl shape of like maybe a rise ribbons sticking more along the lines of a decorative look. There is a little bit of slip work in here, just a couple dots for detail work at the glaze, then we'll break over later. Here's a piece that's been a little bit of slip work before it's actually glazed.

But that detail work then can work as glaze enhancers. Remember, it's all about the details of these pieces. Right now we're really starting off on the basics, you know, pulling up the walls, trimming, establishing good technique, but as you establish that good technique, really start to pay attention to that detail work on this piece, what is interesting, or why about this one is well it has a lot a lot of surface treatments. I went with the straight wall because I did some printmaking techniques on here, which we'll talk about in later chapters on the decorating technique. But what I wanted to show you was the detail underneath here. Now this detail is all pretty much covered up or lost.

When you just aesthetically look at the piece you don't notice it until you actually pick it up. And you can feel that there are these grooves incised into the clay so then as you pick it up, you have the smooth surface You move to the underneath, and you have that organic kind of flow with the rim here, juxtaposed by those harder lines cut underneath of it. So it's building up these layers of both visual and tactile information which can really make these pieces enjoyable and a lot of fun to use. So here in a second, we're going to start talking about handles and handles can be a great way to start personalizing and adding some information to your bowls also, but another technique would be to start removing some clay as in colanders, or berry bowl type shapes. So I just want to talk about that real quickly on this bowl that we threw yesterday.

It has this attracted foot, this removed for it which makes it you know that can be a nice effect just for decoration because again is going to start to introduce that negative space. But if you are going to do a colander, this is a good approach to include at least one small facet or notch within the foot. If you do not if the foot is completely around, and you use this for a colander or variable when you drain the fluid out of it. It creates little pocket of air underneath there, and that water can't fully escape. So since we had this piece, it seemed like a good opportunity to talk about calendars for just a second. Now there's a number of tools that you can use for making holes for your colanders straightforward approach using your pin tool or your knife to simply spin it in.

These are okay but they are a little bit aggressive. They don't give you the control over your whole size and because they are such an aggressive technique, it can cause the surface of your vessel to crack especially when the holes are starting to become a little bit tighter. They do make these copper tube hole makers which again are okay but they do clog very easily. What I prefer to use is an old drill bit and I do emphasize an old drill bit because it will dull it and it will ruin it for you know woodwork things like that. But what this is going to do is it's going to cut the clay away rather than trying to gouge it so it can leave nice clean holes through the piece. By simply turning around with your hand.

So again, that's going to create a nice clean hole on the inside and the outside. And to speed up the process, you can always use your drill bit. Again, be careful of the pressure, let the drill bit do the work and slowly move around your vessel that can make pretty quick work of the call center that is dipping up a little bit more come back in with a sponge and clean up those holes. Now this is a good diameter of hole size for a colander. You don't want to go too small because again, these are going to continue to shrink. They're still going to shrink another you know 10 12% and then you can have that layer of glaze over the top of it.

So if your holes are too small at this date, there's a really good chance that They're going to be filled in with glaze during the finishing process. So this is a good thickness right here right around that that quarter inch thick or so I wouldn't go much smaller than that. And those are just a couple thoughts on some detail finishing work of our bowls. Next, we're going to take a look at handles.