These links will take you to a series of video’s that will get you started: How to Center Clay on the Wheel How to Throw Clay on the Wheel (Make a Mug)   Jane Cullum from Manassas Clay in Virginia will walk you through making a mug from preparing the clay to glazing. Introduction: Prepare the Clay for Throwing: Centering and throwing a Cylinder: Trimming: Add a handle to your Mug: Glazing your Pot:

Wedging Clay for Throwing Pottery   by Pottery Critic

In this article, I am going to be talking about wedging clay. Clay wedging is the act of preparing clay for the pottery wheel in order throw your pottery. This is a very important step in working with the clay. It’s essential because you need to work out all the air bubbles from the clay before you start working with it. Start with a block of clay that you have cut from your big slab. Start by throwing it down on the working table a few times. Don’t be shy, just slam it down. Next, you will begin to press it down, or kneading it. Think of kneading dough for baking bread. All you have to do is keep rolling it up on itself. Basically, you want to push down and then roll it up on its nose. Do this repeatedly. I’d say about 5 minutes or so of kneading the clay is good. If you don’t remove the air bubbles from the clay, you’ll have a lot of problems down the road. It’s important to do this to get all of the air bubbles out of the clay because if you don’t it can cause a lot of problems such as your clay not centering when throwing on a wheel. If you get an air bubble in your pottery and put it in the kiln, as the heat rises and pressure in the bubble increases your pottery piece will blow up. Not only will it ruin the pot, but also other pots in the kiln. We don’t want that now, do we? So follow these easy steps and you’ll be fine. When done kneading your clay, look at the bottom. Chances are there will be creases and holes. These are potential air bubbles. We don’t want that. What we’ll do is to take the bottom side and pound it down on the table. Also, you’ll want to round it by swaying it from side to side and in a circle. Basically, you want to flatten it and smooth it out. That’s pretty much it. One final note before I close this article. If you are unsure of how well you’ve done, take one of your pieces and use your wire clay cutter to cut it down the middle. Inspect each piece to see if there are any air bubbles. If not, you are ready to start throwing handmade pottery.