Garret Pendergrass Pottery

Groupon Pottery Lessons

I decided to use Groupon to boost up private lessons.  It’s been a great response so far. I’m having a great time meeting everyone and new students are falling in love with clay.  I’ve even had a few trying to purchase their own pottery wheel after. I started using Groupon in October and finished up an Introduction Classes early this month. If you have purchased a Groupon for lessons, get on my website:  garretpendergrasspottery and schedule your lesson ASAP! If you have already had a lesson with me, I encourage you to post a pic on my Facebook page Garret Pendergrass Pottery and write a review describing your lesson.

I ventured out through Groupon and had great results. I put out lessons for two people to make two pots each.  Here are some reviews so far!

Go prepared to have a great time and be inspired by the awesome art of pottery! Garret is a fine teacher and is very welcoming.

October 23, 2014 Reply  Tweet

Just a really fun and educational time. Great coaching and very patient and good instruction. You won’t be disappointed by this venture.

October 18, 2014 Reply  Tweet

wonderful experience great teacher (more of a guide) my wife and I both thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

October 18, 2014 Reply  Tweet

We bought 2 Groupons for 4 people and used it for a family fun creative time. It was such an incredible experience–Garret makes it easy to understand and so much fun. We made bowls, vase, small tankard, mug and a crazy looking bowl just for the fun of it!!! My granddaughters, daughter and I can’t wait to go back to paint our pieces and sign up again ! Christmas is around the corner and someone just may be getting a handmade beautiful pottery piece 🙂

October 14, 2014 Reply  Tweet

Great patient teacher and a lot of fun. A lot of basic instruction in just a one hour lesson. I enjoyed it greatly.

October 09, 2014 Reply  Tweet

Our pottery lesson was great!

October 03, 2014 Reply  Tweet

What a great time with a bride to be and her amazing friends! We enjoyed two hours of getting dirty pottery wheel to start the night off.

I’m working on a variety of shapes and patterns for my bowls. I have finished these salad bowls now working w/ colanders and batter bowls.  By the end of this week I need to get started on some mugs for an order!  Arts Goggle in South Fort Worth is very soon Oct 11th I believe from 12-10pm.  I’ll be located in S. Main village on Daggett.  I’ll be set up under a green tent selling work, doing pottery wheel demonstrations, and having a good time. Pray it stays cool without high winds or rain.

Gallery Night is approaching fast and I have to make The Last Big Push to have work ready in time.  I was able to unload a kiln saturday and noticed a few tests turned out great so I…keep fingers crossed…am glazing a good bit of work with these new glaze combinations.

I finally have some good reds and purples i’ve been looking for so I’ll try those out on my next firing for the Bowl Series. Wish me luck!

New kiln load glazed and loaded. I fired this last night and will open early friday morning…fingers crossed!

Throwing Large:

Alright, Day 2 and 3 of Clay Camp was about throwing large by adding a new tool:  calipers!  The girls used about a 1.5 lbs of clay to make a base form in the shape of a cylinder.  They took the calipers to measure the lip, or top of the pot.  Once they knew the lip’s diameter, they threw another ring of clay where it’s base matched the previous lips width and continued that process until they had 5 or 6 rings of clay about 3″ in height each.  The rings of clay had no base so their fingers touch the wheel head when they opened up or hollowed out their ball of clay. After stacking quite a few pieces on each other, a very sizable piece emerged.  They had a great time making the piece and were very excited to see it come together.  Once the piece became leather hard, decorations and handles were added to complete their gigantic structures.  I am very proud of these girls!

Pottery Techniques: handcrafted oval bowl

Alright, I finally got to make one of my favorite shapes.  Hopefully, it will come out of the kiln in time for gallery night, so far I’m very excited about the results.  I did some clay tests and now I’ve switched over to B-Mix which, has given me results that I really enjoy.  I started off with a 6lb ball of clay and threw a large enclosed dome shape.   It is pretty much like making a bottle form but enclosing the neck completely.  I had a little extra clay at the top so I flattened it down and used the blunt end of the wooden modeling tool (from basic pottery tool kit) to add detail while i was slowly rotating the form on the pottery wheel.  I had to wait until the next day for the piece to dry, yet a iittle tacky to cut the piece in half vertically.  I held the wire tool tightly and gently pulled the wire tool from the top all the way down to the base.  While the piece dried some more I threw a donut shape foot with a little over a pound of clay and waited for that to set up as well.  Later in the morning I attached the two halves at the base together and added the foot ring.  Once the foot and bowl dried to about leather hard, I added another wheel thrown donut for the lip of my piece.  As the piece dried, I begin pinching the lip to thin out the clay and shape the wavy top.  Lastly, I added a thin coil along the seam of the lip and bowl to add a strong horizontal line to accentuate the bowls length.  I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I do!

Pottery Camp: Throwing on the Pottery Wheel

What a great week last week. I had two amazing students come in for two hours wednesday through saturday improving on their pottery skills at Pottery Camp.  Both students have previously worked in clay but wanted to focus more on the pottery wheel.  The first day we focused on centering and coning the clay.  This is an essential part of throwing on the pottery wheel.  After a few warm ups, the girls began opening up the ball of clay to create cup forms.  After opening up the clay, they made sure to compress the base to prevent s-cracks!

The girls did an excellent job at throwing on the pottery wheel.  They quickly controlled the clay from opening up too wide and created a pair of very nice cups!  While the cups were drying, we practiced pulling handles and created few with and without textures.  Once the cups dried to leather hard stage, we attached handles by scoring and adding slip to the joints.  We took twisted fishing line to add unique texture to the cups base. What a way to finish off their pots.  Awesome day 1 to Pottery Camp!