Notes from the first time throwing store bought clay on the home made wheel. The first vessel was attempting to be a bowl but the side began to blow, this was rescued by turning the broken rim into a spout, creating an oil lamp like vessel. 

Things I learnt:

• The bought clay formes vessels much more easily
• Wedging is super important and may simply work better with store bought clay potentially due to the purity and consistency of the particles
• Spin the wheel when cutting vessels off
• Walls blow out of bowls, may need less water, more speed, better posture or different hand movements

Things I need to learn:

• Postures and hand motions/ brace positions for throwing  
• make wood scrapers and spatula forming tools
• need more boards and wedging/drying surfaces

To attempt throwing natural clay I collected sandy clay, plastic clay and a sandy plastic clay from natural deposits from the northern slope of the Windsor bridge (Hawksbury River) at a depth of around 2 meters. The natural clay in this area is a banded orange yellow ball clay and the deposit showed no sign of bioturbation (organic or animal disturbance) which indicates a clean, undisturbed, clay deposit.

Firstly I mixed the three clays in a bucket of water at a ratio of 1:1 and left over night

The slush was filtered through a screen to remove any organic material which there was very little of, and to neatly mix the three clays together. Large clumps of plastic clay would not break down, these I left on the screen to dry.

Warning: I had to protect the drying clay from the chooks, believe it or not, they will eat clay clumps!

The contents of the bucket was allowed to settle over the next week, allowing the excess water to be ladled off the top. This process imitates the natural process of clay setting on a river bed.

Silty sand was collected from the yard and sieved through a piece of hessian to remove rocks and large particles and used as temper (grog). The temper was added to the plastic clay from the sieve frame.

Wedging to work the clay into a single homogenous body between the temper and the plastic components of the naturally sourced clay was successful in creating a clean clay matrix ready for throwing, similar to store bought clay.

I attempted to throw this clay on the pottery wheel and managed to work the clay into a small vessel before oversaturation, this particular make up seems to be slightly too absorbent, there may also be something off kilter with the wheel, will need to practice with store bought clay to further understand the variables between the clay body and the wheel itself.

Reflection:

In hindsight natural clay creates a lot of torque, the features tear them selves apart as the wheel turns. This could be because the particles are too large, temper is poorly mixed or in the wrong ratio. There may also be an issue with the wheel, as this is the first time using the home made wheel.

The slush was further mixed by hand an kept to be used as a slip on future projects, it offers a beautiful yellow pigment.

The remaining natural clay has been put aside until further practice can be undertaken with store bought clay, and this will be revisited in future

Amendment:

There was a issue with the wheel, it was sitting on an unlevel surface, once this was corrected the rate of successful vessels became much higher.