Teapots!

Can I just start by saying that YouTube is awesome? Because YouTube is awesome. I had no idea that there were so many pottery videos on YouTube. Cynthia and I watched one about throwing a teapot on Tuesday. I couldn't find the exact one we watched, but check this one out! It's pretty amazing. I don't have cable in my house at the moment, which has actuall helped me concentrate on the other things I need to get done (like homework...) but now that I know about the abundance on YouTube I will be distracted again! The Hubby Hub is going to love that, I'm sure...=D

Watching others work is very educational. I mean, I see it happen in class every week, but I'm so focused on my own work that I don't really have a chance to glean any information from it. It's a double-edged sword though. The peeps who make these videos are so much better than I am, and it makes me frustrated with my ineptitude. I guess the key is to keep reminding myself that these potters are way more experienced than I am, and have been doing it for A LOT longer. Slow and steady...practice makes perfect...and the tortise was victorious...

Or something like that.

There are also some cool videos that show how to sculpt with wheel thrown pottery. There was one that I'm trying to find in which the artist threw four separate pieces and then combined them to make an owl...it was really cool. Ah ha! I found it. It's about 9 minutes, and it's sped up from real time. Really neato though. Makes me want to expand my horizons!

I did throw a vessel with a lid on Tuesday. It ended up being pretty pathetic. I still haven't managed to figure out how to pull straight up without flaring out the rim (which, naturally, causes me a lot of problems). These videos have been helpful, though. I think I've figured out what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it. We'll see how that goes next week!

On a side note, no delivery of David's Porcelain this week. Cynthia advised that I should use something else for teapots, though, something stiffer, so I went with Half and Half, which I think is half porcelain and half stoneware. I could be wrong. Note to self: find out for sure.