Tea pot Contd.

The teapot is coming along quite nicely. Last Tuesday I spent most of my three hour time slot shaving the teapot and lid. I forgot just how much time a teapot takes to make! So far I've raked up 5 hours.

Here are all the pieces I worked on. Far left is the teapot body and lid. The lid is just about finished, but as you can see it's still sticking out pretty far so I need to trim it down to size next time I'm in the studio. Middle long piece is the spout, which I didn't have time to work on, thus it looks the same as before. Lastly is the lanturn which is officially shaved and ready for carving.

Since the teapot body is super round I had to use a vase shaped holder to place it in while shaving it on the wheel. The roundness of the body made it impossible to shave it without the device since it will just roll around and be unstable. Using the vase makes it a lot easier BUT is extremely time consuming. Below is a picture of the vase type thing. (Sorry I don't know the technical name!)

First you have to soak the vase (its made of clay) to get it wet, then you have to center it on the wheel, after which you base it with a coil of clay. Then the teapot is placed on the top which also has to be centered and leveled horizontally and vertically. (My teacher had to help me with this, I can't do it yet) After all this you need one more long coil to wrap around the teapot body to make sure it won't shift while shaving. The whole setup process takes about 10-15mins, which is a lot compared to the usual 3-4 min it takes for pieces that don't need the clay vase as a stabilizer. After all this shave away!









This is the shelf where all the different shaped stabilizing pots are kept. As you can see there are many different shapes and sizes. The wide ones are for round pieces like my teapot body while the long and skinny ones are for narrow pieces like a vase. Arai Sensei hand made all of these many years back, and they're still in good condition today.






For now the teapot pieces will go into a styrofoam box to stay moist. Until next time!






Studio Shots

lanturns someone made, they remind me of x-mas trees :)

My teacher with an ornamental owl someone made, it looks kinda like him, esp. since they both have cute mustaches! hehe