Sadly today was my last day at Winchcombe Pottery. Lauren and I have exited the shack and are preparing to go over to her parents house in L.A. It was an amazing learning experience and I have lots of pictures and videos so will continue to write about my time at Winchcombe for a while yet.

Having shown I could make beakers I was tasked with handled beakers! Very exciting stuff!

They are very similar to beakers but you push a convex curve into them, and obviously have to put a handle on them too. Matt said he wants a thousand making. I'm not sure he is being serious. I hope not anyway.

Here are some examples of handled beakers from other potters at Winchcombe.

Cone up the clay.

Cone down the clay.

Put a hole in it with your thumb.

Open it up.

You wantot open it wider than you need the finished base to be.

This move is pulling the clay up into a think-ish cone.

Make sure the top is centred.

Now you are ready for the first proper pull.

You need to work on getting all the clay out of the base. These pots are only 10oz of clay so you haven't got much spare.

Once it is almost the right height and width you can begin shaping.

I use a credit card to push the curve into the body.

Most of the presure is coming from the card, not the inside fingers.

Remove the puddle in the bottom.

Take off the skirt around the base.

Wire it off.

Scrape your hands clean.

I dry my hands too.

Carefully lift it off.

To join its pals on the board.

And here's a video of me making one: