We had booked this Saturday workshop with Dan very early in the year and had looked forward to this for quite some time especially as Dan had offered to bring along his potters wheel for anyone to try out.
We were able to lay out the ten tables one for each person and an area for the wheel, Dan started off with the basics of rolling out a base, rolling out the walls, the preparation to score the surfaces to join each together.
He also covered free forming a thumb pot and how he makes feet for his pots.
Some of us had already had measurements and even a plan of the particular shape they had in mind for a particular tree or trees. some decided to go down the art pottery route and why not.
This included not only more formal pots but a slab for a forest planting and one member wanted a crescent pot ( thats the one which had to be shaped upside down in the photos ).
With that Dan assisted by his partner Carly lets us loose on the clay, between them they circulated amongst helping, advising throughout the day and credit to them everyone achieved the pots they had in mind.
I had a large pot in mind and as Dan advised you can lose 10% shrinkage in firing it did come out very large in its raw state and did I take some flak for this with comments like is this your new bath/hot tub and which end are the taps going and the drainage holes look like they will take a bath plug to mention just a few but I rose above this as I like my pot Polly ( named because of all the derogatory comments ), only hope Dan can get it in his kiln and more importantly I get it in my car.
After making our formal pots we all then went free form on the clay left over.
Dan provided everything needed for the pottery workshop he took away our pots and will carry out any finessing, he will glaze and fire the pots hopefully no failures and we will meet him to collect the results which I hope will be another posting later on to see how they all turned out.
We all thoroughly enjoyed the day I have never known our group so quiet concentrating,many thanks to Dan and Carly for a brilliant day.
I have included many photos of the day
Start of the day
During the day
The wheel ( disappointment Michael McIntyre could not make ) and no one feel off.
Finally the results of our artistic talent ( eat your hearts out Great Pottery Throw Down ) no clay was harmed in making these pieces of art.
