#Pottery tools

[claypigeonpottery]

hi what tool do you use for sgraffito?

hi! I use a few different tools and I’m actually glad to be getting this question now because I recently got a new tool and wanted to write down my impressions

(I’m not sponsored or anything, I just like these)

my favourite tool is Kemper’s wire stylus, it’s a very fine tool and doesn’t generally leave furrows in the clay. plus the shape of it keeps me from accidentally carving too deep

I find Xiem’s ribbon tools incredibly useful for different sized marks, carving a smoother surface, or creating certain textures

and this is the new one I got about a month ago, Kemper’s small double-ball stylus. I know a couple other sgraffito artists who swear by them, but it’s not my favourite. it can carve some very fine lines but I find it often leaves furrows in the clay and I have to go over my lines a second time to clean them up 🫤 and it can slip and carve too deep as well if I accidentally use too much pressure

but it can carve tight circles and small loopy shapes much more easily than the wire stylus, so I’ll definitely still use it for some details

[jbbartram-illu]

Do you have any advice for someone taking their first ever ceramics class soon? Are there any beginner tools you'd recommend? Your art is super inspiring and incredible!

I think my main advice would be to go in with enthusiasm & put aside any fear of screwing up -- clay can have a mind of its own & sometimes you have to make some shitty pots (or creatures) before you figure out how to listen to the clay and have it listen to you back!

This advice is particularly important if you're starting with wheel throwing, as there's a lot more going on/a lot more obscure hand positions/physics going on in the learning curve. Handbuilding/sculpting is a little less intense from the get-go, but still requires a willingness to futz around & learn the feel of the medium before you can get good.

In terms of tools, the studio should have everything you need, but if you do latch on to pottery like I did & decide to set up a home studio (or start doing your own outside-of-class work at the studio where you're taking classes, as some places do offer open studio time), I made a post a while ago going over my most-used tools.

These are specifically for sculpting, as I hadn't started making my mugs yet, but I use a lot of these for handbuilding the mugs as well...the only things I'd add for vessel-making are a full-size rolling pin (I have the most basic wooden one, purchased from a home hardware) & this scorer that makes scratching the joints of the mugs faster vs. a pin tool:

All my tools are handbuilding-oriented, as I don't work on the wheel right now, but I can tell you that some of the tools you need for wheel throwing are a pin tool, a wood tool to do the base, a sponge, a trimming tool, and maybe one or two other things I've forgotten?? I'm sure the lovely people where you're taking classes can also help out with tool suggestions (I generally find potters to be some of the kindest, most excited-to-share-techniques sorts of people)!

[oldfarmhouse]

https://www.instagram.com.atellier. olivae

[newluddite]

Assassin Potters.

My Wife is taking a pottery class. She came home with the set of tools she needs to make pots and things. One of the items is a Garrotte.

It is is thin wire strung between two small dowel handles. It is identical to what I saw in a Commando display at a museum. Was there a desperate fight in a pottery studio and the commando grabbed what came to hand or was there a trained assassin taking a day off for meditative clay manipulation? Hey this can be used with pots they think.

Sentries searching a potter's sack could find this lethal tool; "Whats this for?"

"It's just for cutting my pots off of the wheel." So innocent and not threatening. Then the sentry turns his back and.....

Which cam first the potters or the assassins?

[ornamentodeux]

More Adventures with Porcelain

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

i literally spend at least 2 hours a week just looking at various pictures of the terracotta army. utterly entranced. look at the details in the hair. you'd never see ANY of this when they're lined up in formation, but they're there.  

theres about 8000 of these guys down there, no two faces are alike. they're works of art. they're the manifestation of a cruel despot's delusions of grandeur. a talisman against the terrible inevitability of death, both pathetic and strangely pitiful. like watching a child clinging to his blanket, begging you not to turn off the light. they were a bunch of insignificant clay statues from a side chamber that was so small and unremarkable, no one bothered to write down the location. they were modelled after real people. their only purpose was to serve qin shi huang in the afterlife, so he could reign in heaven as he did on earth. now the emperor is just a ghost and his pawns are immortal. my dad and i visited them in the dead of winter, on a weekday, just so we wouldn't have to deal with tourists like us. the place had easily 500 people--not including the ones below ground. we traveled to xian via the old "green skin" diesel train. there are faster means, like highspeed rail but dad insisted i try the authentic way, the same way he would have traveled when he was my age it was also like, a quarter of the price but im sure that had nothing to do with it! back in the 80s carriages would get so packed people had to have their luggage passed in via the windows. as we chugged along, i read my book and my dad made us cup noodles. car is just a shortened version of "carriage", the word is the same but the mechanism is different. it's the same in chinese. i think if i told someone from the warring states period i could travel from the Kingdom of Qi to Qin in just four hours with my metal carriage, i'd be laughed out of town--or accused of being a spy and sentenced to 'death by carriage.' we hopped off the train at 4am and took a different "carriage." the taxi driver joked; "basically every dynasty put their capital in xian, stick a shovel anywhere and you'll turn up some national treasure or another." i wonder what it would have felt like to be a farmer digging a well and then out pops a remarkably realistic human head. statistical analysis show the soldier's faces bear a strong similarity to people living in the region today. the taxi stopped in front of a jewellery-hawking tourist trap and refused budge an inch until we went inside. did you know the terracotta soldiers were originally multi-coloured and painfully gaudy, just like the greek marbles? they were made assembly-line style. the arms and legs were made from the same workshops that made clay plumbing pipes and roof tiles. for quality control, the artisans were required to stamp their names. the workers who built these tombs were executed shortly afterwards, because only dead men can be trusted with secrets. qin shi huang's mausoleum is unlikely to be excavated in my father's lifetime, or mine, not unless i'm willing to take a BIG ONE for the team... instead of the tomb, they built some kind of qin shi huang-themed theme park next to it. not only was it tacky as hell the entrance fee was like $50. we went to the museum and i looked at bronze tools and pottery shards for three hours. look why can't we just crack the thing open i can't be the only one here whos dying from curiosity what if we all just took turns digging

[ansonmountdaily]

Anson Mount working on pit fire pottery in his workshop

Some highlights of Anson unveiling his latest pottery pieces on Instagram. Making clay pottery (mugs, bowls, vases, etc) is one of Anson's hobbies! The specific type of pottery produced is called earthenware.

"This is not a regular kiln opening, this is gonna be an opening of a barrel fire. Many of you probably heard of pit fire pottery and it's exactly what it sounds like; it's when you dig a pit, you build a fire in the pit, you put the pottery in there with a bunch of botanicals and chemicals, and you cover it up and let the fire do the work. We talked a lot about chaos in the process last time. This is one of the more chaotic processes that you can do with pottery because you just have absolutely no idea what the fire is gonna do." - Anson Mount

Source: Anson Mount Official Instagram May 24 2023 + clips from May 20 2023 and May 18 2023

[nymla]

🌼 Shop Update! 🌼

The shop has been restocked :} One of the pieces is this paint palette & cup.

Handbuilt/sculpted/pinched stoneware ceramics. With a lil place on the rim of the paint cup where you can let your brush have a rest.

You know, I love making paint palettes and I feel ✨blessed✨ to have them be a small part of someones elses artistry or creative journey! How amazing to be a part of an ecosystem of creativity?! 🤩

You can check them all out at: www.nymla.se/shop

Thaaank you all for being here!

[thepastisalreadywritten]

[someratidk]

one of those moments where you start a painting traditionally but then give up and switch mediums entirely bcs erm acrylic paint and i dont really erm meld well erm i never do realism like ever and for good reason HAHAHAHAH

[claypigeonpottery]

@san-sebastienne thank you!

the details are done with Kemper’s wire stylus

(it’s my favourite)

[jbbartram-illu]

Hi! I love your art, it sparks such joy in me :))

And I had a question for you, I work primarily in 2D but I've always been interested in sculpture. What would the essential equipment/tools be for someone wanting to start?

Thanks!!

First off, thank you for your lovely words about my work!

Secondly, the truth: I'm a terrible person to ask about this because the second I get involved in a new type of art, I immediately become a little obsessed with collecting ALL THE TOOLS, and pottery gives you a lot of tools to choose from/collect, oh no.

Despite this shortcoming in my creative urges, I've tried to do a roundup of my most-used tools / put together a selection of tools that, if I only had them, I could still do all the things I like to do on my sculptures. Here we go:

Knife!

Mine is pottery-specific (because I was at a pottery shop & it wasn't expensive), but it doesn't need to be. A dollar store paring knife would work just as well! I use this to cut out things from slabs (eg. wings, crowns, etc) & sometimes to do more dramatic sculpting at the very beginning of a larger piece.

2. Pin tool

I use this for scoring clay to attach bits together, to carve smaller designs (eg. on my teeny sphinxes), etc. It's one of the things you really need as a potter (if you're working on the wheel, you can also use it to check the thickness of your bottom).

3. Wooden sculpting tools

I have a comical number of these (mostly because my mom gave me all her pottery stuff), but these are the three I use the most (plus a narrower-tipped version of the pointy one, not pictured). I use them for sculpting my forms before I scoop their insides out, more sculpting after the scooping, to blend the edges when I've attached a limb/other bit to a piece, and to add texture/details. I also use the very blobby end of the one on the right to compress/smooth the insides of smaller sculptures once I've scooped them out.

4. Paintbrushes

Since I'm also an illustrator & paint with watercolour & gouache, I've got an endless supply of brushes that are exhausted from rough watercolour paper but still have a lot of life in them -- now those become brushes for sculpting & glazing! During the sculpting phase, I use them to add water to my scored sections when I'm attaching bits together (I like to live dangerously & just use water instead of slip, like a real ceramics badboy), to smooth out bits where my fingers/a sponge won't fit, and to gently re-wet bits that are drying too fast. Absolutely indispensable!

5. Scoopin' tool (aka trimming tool if you pot on the wheel)

As with almost all of my tools, I have a bunch of these (mostly inherited from my mom, who was mostly a wheel potter so had a bunch of them), but I just got this one for Xmas & the circular end is the best yet for scooping the insides out of my creatures! You could also use these for sculpting, but I find my little knife/wood tools easier to control - these sometimes get a bit gouge-y.

6. Sponges!

Sponges in general are important for ceramics (I also have some cheap cut up hardware store sponges for cleanup purposes), but I find that these Mudtools sponges are the best for actual sculpting - they don't hold as much water & are easier to wring out than the type of sponges you get for wheel throwing, so your sculpture doesn't get sad & goopy, they're amazing for smoothing your surfaces, & the thin edges get into smaller areas vs. other sponges. I'm also hoping they're super durable - I got these at xmas, so have just started using them & can't give any info on that yet.

7. Texture tools!

I love to add texture to my sculptures - feathers, hair, etc, and these sgraffito tools are great for that (whether you're actually doing sgraffito or not)! I have a few (including a set of Xiem ones in all different shapes), but these two are the ones I use the most.

BONUS THINGS:

A few other things I find important to my pottery setup include:

A spray bottle (my bigger Ikea one broke, so I'm using this wee one that came from a travel watercolour set...really need to get another big one!)

A bigger basin/tub for cleanup/cleaning tools while you work (you can also see a couple of my tool/desk-cleaning sponges here). I do keep a smaller bowl of water on my desk while I sculpt, but I find having a bigger water source helps, as I often need to clean tools while I work & would rather not have to go to the sink for that (or dirty my desk-water too much).

Yogurt containers for dried clay bits/tupperwares for sculptures in progress. I have great aspirations of recycling my clay scraps, so I keep them in labelled containers for when I get my butt in gear to do that. These little tupperwares are great for keeping chunks of clay & sculptures in progress because you can spritz up the whole box & get a nice humid atmosphere to prevent drying out if you need to leave them for a few days.

EXTRA BONUS: tools you don't need but that I find extremely useful

Pony roller! It has the best name AND is great for rolling out little slabs/bevelling the edges of them (with the littler bottom roller)

Clay paddle. I feel *insert gif of Rosa from Brooklyn 99 with the puppy* about this tool, which I just got for Xmas. It's AMAZING for roughly shaping lumps of clay before I get into more detailed sculpting, and makes mashing two chunks of clay back into one chunk WAY easier. 11/10, love this tool so much.

Lastly, this isn't a tool, but this stuff is the BEST moisturizer if you do anything with your hands/live in a place with harsh dry winters & would like to keep your knuckles in one piece (I also love it while I'm drawing - I can hold the pencil right away?? Magic?!). It sinks in super quickly, doesn't make your hands all sad & slippery for ages, AND it lasts for a while even if you've got clay & water on & off your hands all the time. Great stuff.

If you got to the end of this, THANK YOU for your great question! I had a lot of fun figuring out my essential tools (tho obviously you don't need all of these to make great work...these are just my most important ones!) and then...uh, rambling on about them, apparently.

[tyrhinosaurus]

My pottery has come so far holy cow

A year and a half, and pretty much everything I finish brings me so much joy and pride

Lowkey tempted to start a business. What could possible go wrong...

[thesilicontribesman]

Middle Jomon Pottery and Worked Tools, Japan, 5000 years old, 'Circles of Stone: Stonehenge and Prehistoric Japan' Exhibition, Stonehenge Visitor Centre, Wiltshire

[lailoken]

Another amazing gift from my husband is this Mirror-Black Scrying Basin that he crafted for my Scrying Plinth—lustrated in the waters of our land's Matron River. It is most definitely an improvement from the previous basin (though, it was charming in its own right.)

[rowenabean]

I got paid for my pottery! For the first time! I wound up with $80 from the 3 things that sold at the exhibition, and it feels appropriate to spend it on something pottery related.

Ok so before everyone immediately clicks on gold:

Fancy tool would be exclusively for carving pottery, a thing I love to do. There's not really a great cheaper option here BUT the fancy tool would not do any other jobs. Single purpose but VERY good at that purpose

Less fancy tools would probably be a nice brush or two and a trimming tool, would make the process of making pots a little smoother. Might be slightly multi functional ie you can also carve with some trimming tools, but not as well as with the really fancy tool

New glazes are always universally fun but I also did just get 2 new glazes when I bought clay recently and I haven't had a chance to test them yet so I don't know if now is the right time?

Adding gold to pieces sounds like amazing fun BUT I would have a lot of learning to do bc you have to fire it at a different temperature to normal glazes etc so I'd have to book out the club kiln for my own pieces, would be so much fun but again I don't know if now is the right time?

(Disclaimer I am absolutely not committing to doing whatever the top answer is. But help me decide.)