 I've been working on these urns or large vases depending on how healthy you're feeling and I thought I'd make one more just to show you how. This is about 7-8 pounds of clay and I'm going to put it in the middle of the wheel and it's going to turn into an urn. I'm going to center it this way just by squeezing it between the heels of my hand. Now the bigger piece, you've got to bow work it a bit more. I'm going to cone it up a bit and bend it over and one more. That's getting better. I can get rid of this excess here. It just bugs me and it gives me a bigger place to keep my needle. One more pull up. That's feeling better. My regular centering. I want to center this with a narrower base, about the base of the vase. You don't want a fat center for a thin vase. Makes sense. I want a taller, thinner center and that's pretty good. I'm going to open this up. I was watching a while ago. I didn't do this until I made those. I was going to say I knew how but I do know how. I haven't done this until I made these vases but I'm going to open with my fist. I'm going to open it a little bit with my hand here and then I'm just going to go down. My knuckle is going to be sort of like the drill bit. I'm just going to go straight down in there and it works really nicely. You can see this goes down there and it opens it up. I am connected here with my thumb. I don't have a lot of feeling from where I am at the end of my knuckle. My fingertips are much more sensitive to depth so I'm watching it a little bit closely. There we are. I'm going to flatten that out with my fist a bit. I'm going to put my hands in. I'm going to put my regular method of pulling my right fingers to the palm of my left hand. Actually, I'm using my knuckle. I lied. I'm using this. I'm going to do one more. I just want to open up the bottom. Now I'm going to switch and my hands are going to go the other way. Now I'm pulling my fingers right across each other and I'm just pulling across. My outside hand is raising up. My inside hand is still going across the bottom. I'm going to go down there and make it tidy. I'm going to pull it up. Notice I'm not going really fast. I was going faster when I was centering, letting the wheel do most of the work. But I want a little more control now so I'm going a little more slowly. I'm going to bring that in. I'm not going to let it get very big. And pull it up again. I always make sure it's slidy and tidy. Finger pressures are directly across from each other. I'm going to hold that clay and I'm pulling it straight up. Sometimes it gets a little awkward at the top to keep pulling. If your arms aren't long enough, you can at this point just cuddle it in and pull up. Anytime you push in, you have to pull up. You have to give your clay somewhere to go. You can't just push it in. It has to go up as well. I'm going to go down there and get some more clay. When you first start throwing tall cylinders, when I was teaching kids or adults, just breathe. Sometimes the people start throwing a cylinder. They're breathing in and breathing in and breathing in. If you get a really tall cylinder, you don't breathe in. You could fall over and wreck your cylinder. Just breathe. There you go. We're going to pull up again. I'm going to bring that in. I'm going to get a messy bottom. I'm going to go in there and tidy it up first. I'm going to keep that in. You want to keep the top in. You don't want it to get away from you. It's really hard to bring it in again once it goes out. If it's okay, if it's fairly thick, it's going to get thinner as you keep pulling. I'm going to start giving this guy some shape. Now my fingerprints or fingertips are right across from each other. I'm going to pull up. I'm going to keep that guy in and not worry about the thickness right now. You have to be going to have to get your arm in there. Pull it out a little bit more. That's better. Now I'm going to cuddle it in. Clean up my bottom. Cuddle it in. At this point, if your pot has a little bit of rhythm, don't worry about it. Because some of my favorite people have a little bit or a lot of rhythm. So don't worry about it. Pots are like people. There's very few perfect people. And there's very few perfect pots. I'm going to do what I call my six point cuddling. Because it's two, four, six. And it just sounds so cute. I don't get that much. Anyway, this is where the top quite often finds rhythm at this part of the process. And I don't care. I'm just going to now cut that out. Get rid of it. I'm going to look at my shape. It's kind of like the rest of them, I think. Now I'm supporting that. And I'm right underneath. You can maybe see where my hands are dirty. I was right underneath that shoulder and supporting right underneath and on top. So I'm holding it from both sides. Giving it some definition. And pulling up that top. I'm going to have a look at my shape. Now you don't want this part to get too tall. Because I'm going to throw a bowl upside down for a lid in a minute. And then this part is really tall. It's hard to get your bowl to fit. But I'm not going to worry too much about sponging it and making it tidy. Because I'm going to mess with it as I make the bowl fit on top. I also notice that it's slightly tapered. So the bowl will fit over top of it. Shape this way. You're going to have a problem getting your lid on there. And the inside is tidy. I'm going to get rid of that outside. A little definition right there. Tidy my taper. And cut it level. And I'll sponge it off just because I have to. It's just who I am. It's pretty much done. I do have quite a bit of clay right here. I'm going to get rid of that clay right there. I'm going to undercut it. If you have a problem with it peeling, you can, as I said before. Just put a little bit of water in there and chase that around. But this guy's going to peel. This guy, well, now it's water made a mess. This guy's going to peel fine. Very appealing, this little pot. And I've got a good place to keep my needle. I'm going to throw my wire on the floor. Pick it up. Tidy it off. I'll cut this off. And I'll make a lid for it and talk about trimming in a bit.