Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#219 5 things I have learned from sculpting and how you can apply them to your own pottery
39 Plays2 years ago
On this episode I will be explaining the top 5 things I have learned since I started making sculptures. Number 5 will shock you so don't miss out on this episode
The Questions we ask will determine how our pottery will look like that's why I created a Free 15 questions to help you discover your voice template go grab it here www.shapingyourpottery.com/questions
Follow me on Instagram @nictorres_pottery
Recommended
Transcript
Discovering Your Unique Voice in Pottery
00:00:00
Speaker
real quick before we get started did you know that the questions that we asked are going to determine what our pottery is going to look like and it's going to determine what our voice is going to look like that's why I created 15 questions that you can use right now to start discovering your own unique voice go to shapingyourpottery.com forward slash questions to get this free booklet
Transition from Wheel Throwing to Sculpting: Key Lessons
00:00:22
Speaker
Seven months ago, I made the transition from wheel throwing to sculpting with my pottery. And here are five things that I learned from this seven month journey that you can apply to your own pottery as well. Number five will shock you. If you love pottery and want to take your skills to the next level, you're in the right place. Find your own pottery style right here on Shaping Your Pottery with Nick Torres. Let's get started.
Bringing Your Vision to Life
00:00:52
Speaker
What is up, Pape Nation? This is Nick Torres here. And I'm going to be talking about the things I have learned from my sculpting journey so far. So number one that really, really helped me out a lot was have an idea of what you're trying to make. So when I first started sculpting, the first thing I was doing was really kind of trying to improve the way it looked. And then once I got that down a little bit, I started
00:01:22
Speaker
focusing on how to make my own characters and make the actual design of the thing that I was trying to make. And I had an idea, some little features that I really wanted. Like I knew I wanted to have a hood and a mask for my characters, but that was really it. But that wasn't enough to give me, make my vision come to life. So it wasn't until I started playing around with AI, I started putting in some like, you know, like features, I said, create me a character with
00:01:51
Speaker
a mix of moon night and nightling. And you know it spit out a character and an image and then that's when my vision slowly started coming to life and I was able to have that idea I had in my mind and made it come to life because I knew that I was making it. So that is tip number one. Have an idea of what you are making or at least somewhat an idea. It doesn't have to be a full idea
00:02:17
Speaker
just have like some idea of what direction you're trying to go with your pottery, with your sculptures, with your handboating, whatever it is you're making. Just have an idea of what you're trying to make, because that will make things go a lot smoother for you.
Scaling Up with Small Projects and Incremental Improvements
00:02:33
Speaker
Tip number two is starting small and work your way up. So when I was learning how to sculpt my characters that I'm making,
00:02:46
Speaker
I started really really small and I started with one thing at a time as well. I started with my arms and I started with a small arm and I wanted to make that look good and then once I made that look good
00:03:02
Speaker
transition to like the body or and then I will transition to the legs and then the head and I just kept making Transitions from that but I started from that one little section of my sculptures which was which was the arm and You could apply this to your pottery as well. So start small if you are throwing on the wheel start small maybe with about a pound of clay and
00:03:30
Speaker
and try to reach the maximum potential on that pound of clay. Then move up to about a pound and a half of clay. And then try to reach the maximum potential on that pound and a half of clay. Then maybe move up to three pounds of clay. Again, try to make the maximum amount of potential. And just keep working your way up until you're able to get that large amount of things. Because if you jump right into the deep end, then you're gonna end up drowning. And we don't want that.
00:04:00
Speaker
And that's when things start getting a little bit difficult. You maybe stop making pottery. So you have to start small and then work your way up to the bigger things. That should help you. I know it helped me a lot. And I think it will help you a lot as well. If you just start small and then work your way up.
00:04:19
Speaker
And that brings me to my third point, to recap a little bit. So the first thing that I learned was to have an idea in your mind of what you are trying to make, whatever it is with your sculpting, hand building, or wheel throwing, having at least an idea of what you're trying to make. The second thing is, is to start small and work your way up to larger things. The third thing I learned from my time sculpting over these seven months is to make small improvements over time.
00:04:47
Speaker
When I was coming up with the character designs for my character, I would just start doing really anything. And then I would look, I would make it, I would finish it and I would look at the character and some things would kind of feel a little off. You know, maybe the design was a little off or maybe the arm length was a little off.
00:05:08
Speaker
And so I would make tiny improvements the next time I would go out into the studio and make a sculpture. I'd make tiny, tiny, tiny improvements. So maybe let's say I have a hood on my character, but I didn't really like the hood. I would take off the hood and then maybe replace it with a bandana around the head. And those are the type of small adjustments you can make with your own pottery. So like maybe if you are wheel throwing right now, for example,
00:05:35
Speaker
If you're wheel throwing and you make a shape that you maybe normally make, or you just make the shape and you don't, you feel like something is a little off. Try making a super, super tiny improvement to it. See, see what, where that takes you. So if you maybe make a shape, like it's a, let's say it's a bulbish shape.
00:05:58
Speaker
Try making one little indent on one side. See where that takes you. And then if you don't like it, great. Try another small improvement. These small improvements will start stacking on one of another, one and none, none. They'll just keep going and going and going until you find that one thing that's like, yes, this is my baby. This is what I want. So make small, tiny improvements. So here are the three tips so far.
00:06:25
Speaker
Number one is to have an idea of what you are going to make. Number two is to start small and work your way up. Number three is to make small improvements over time.
Exploring New Ideas for Skill Evolution
00:06:37
Speaker
And finally, here we are at number four is if you have an idea, try it out. You're never going to know how your ideas are going to turn out unless you try it out. I had to learn that the hard way.
00:06:52
Speaker
would get into a little bit of a zone, right? And I'm like, yes, this character is looking good. I'm kind of satisfied with this character. And then I'll get an idea. I'll get a little bit afraid to try it because I didn't know if I would mess up the actual design. But because I would try the idea out, I would either see if it did well or if it made it even better.
00:07:17
Speaker
So you have to try out new ideas out and that's how you're going to continue evolve your pottery as well. If you have an idea, try it out. That is key here. If you have an idea, try it out because that's you're not going to know unless you try it out. So here are the four tips again. Number one is have an idea of what you are going to make.
00:07:37
Speaker
Number two, starting small and working your way up. Number three, making small improvements over time. Number four is if you have an idea, try it.
Consistency Over Technique: Insights from Yoshi Fuji
00:07:46
Speaker
And finally, number five, my personal favorite, and I think this one will help you the most, is consistency over technique.
00:07:57
Speaker
What do I mean by consistency over technique? So you see, too many times people focus just on technique. You know, they think, oh, if I get this technique down, then I won't ever have to worry about it again. But the opposite is actually true. You should be focusing more on consistency rather than technique. Because the technique can come later. The consistency part is what's hard. Because how many times have you
00:08:26
Speaker
wanted to maybe make pottery but you just didn't want to get out of bed or maybe you're a little bit tired from work and you just want to rest and you just want to go home, eat a hot meal, maybe watch some TV, let your mind like have that little break and then you want to make pottery but it may come so much harder to make pottery because you are in that zone, you're in that state of just wanting to rest. So the consistency part is the hardest thing
00:08:53
Speaker
to get down, but it's also the most important thing. It's better than technique to learn. If you get the consistency part down, the technique will come later. So here's a little tip that you can do that I learned from Yoshi Fuji. So he learned from one of his mentors that if you are struggling to get into the studio and into the studio enough, he said to just go into the studio and just sit there.
00:09:22
Speaker
sit there for like five minutes and just sit there. That's all you have to do. You don't have to make anything. You don't have to do anything else. You could just sit there, sit there in the studio. But by simply going to the studio or wherever you're making the pottery at, that simple action of just going to that studio is going to help you actually be able to get that consistency down.
00:09:49
Speaker
You're going to be able to start you're going to want to start making pottery simply by just sitting in that room. So those are the five tips. Number one is to have an idea of what you are going to make. Number two, starting small and work your way up. Make small improvements over time. Number four, if you have an idea, try it out. Number five and the most important one is the consistency over technique.
00:10:18
Speaker
I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I'll see you guys next time.