Hi guys and welcome back to my channel, Blue Nose Trading. My name is Tori Solis, and today I'm going to be pulling handles to attach to the mugs that I threw in my last video.
If you're looking for a "how to pull handles" video, this probably isn't it. This is only like the second time I've ever tried to pull handles. Now I've watched all the good videos on how to do this, and my college ceramics professor has shown me a demo on how to do this. I think the point I'm trying to make here, is that this takes practice. I pulled some OK handles, but they are inconsistent at best. If you have watched any of the YouTube professionals, they pull handles that are consistent, even, and pretty much perfect in what seems like no time at all. I'm just here to level your expectations if you're new and feel like you suck at handles. You're not alone.
Essentially, what I'm doing, or rather, what I'm attempting to do, is to pull and even and appropriately sized handle off a carrot of clay. I have a bucket of water that I'm dunking my hand into so that it glides over the clay. I'm applying gentle pressure, while pulling and squeezing the clay down gently. If I don't have enough water, the pressure and motion will rip the clay.
This sounds all fine and dandy on paper, but actually pulling a good consistent handle is another story. There's some unspoken nuance to how you move your hand, exactly how much pressure you apply, and exactly what position your finger need to be in to control the shape of the handle that you're pulling.
So let's say that you get a handle you feel is OK. Now you have to pinch that handle off and set it somewhere to firm up. Clay has a memory, so if you just put it in any old way in any old place, it's not really going to set up how you want it to. I tried forming mine over a rolling pin. I ran out of rolling pin and tried to use the non-ideal parts of the rolling pin, like the handles, which, was just about as bad of an idea as it sounds. I also just laid a few on their sides, pre- bent. I'm not entirely sure what even worked best. I definitely will need more practice to figure it out.
As far as attaching the handle, that's a bit more straight forward. Once the handles have firmed up enough to hold their shape against gravity, you just figure out where you want them, slip, score and stick them on. I found that cutting the ends off the handles at an angle was also helpful.
I've been storing these pots in a damp box to keep them at a workable leather state until I had time to do this. If you want to make a damp box, I totally made a video for that.
Depending on your clay, drying differences between your handles, your pot, your slip that you use, some people have issues with cracking around handles. This issue pretty much always comes up to uneven drying, and sassy clay. But I digress. With this particular clay, I don't really stress the handles drying because it doesn't give me too many problems.
I like to use a paintbrush with slip to smooth out the connections of the handles. After I finish attaching the handles, I'm putting them back into the damp box so I can carve these later. These handles are not all the same, but all the same, I still think they turned out OK.
Next week I'll be carving and applying a white stoneware slip to these mugs, and some of these pots before they're set to dry and put into a bisque fire. For this series, I'm going to be applying a white stoneware slip on top of this brown clay because I want to try to get some better glaze results by putting the glaze on top of the white stoneware. The test tiles I have done for this clay where I just put the glaze on top of this brown clay, I haven't been really impressed with the results. I'm hoping that with a little bit of layering I'm going to be able to get some better results.
If you'd like to see how this series turns out, I'd suggest that you subscribe to my channel. If you'd like to gain early access to all of my videos and help to support my channel, you can find me at patreon.com/bluenosetrading. Thank you so much for tuning in this week guys. I will see you next week so that we can add slip and carve these pots.
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