How to Throw On A Wheel (Florian Gadsby)

Learning to throw pottery on the wheel can feel a little overwhelming at first, but breaking the process down into a few key steps makes it much easier to understand.

Florian Gadsby has created some of the best pottery tutorials on YouTube, with detailed demonstrations of each stage of the throwing process. Below, we’ve put together a selection of his videos that take you through the fundamentals, from preparing and centering your clay through to pulling up the walls of your first pot.

1. How to Cone Clay on the Potter’s Wheel

Coning is a useful part of preparing clay on the wheel and getting it ready to throw.

The process involves using your hands to bring the spinning clay upwards into a tall cone before carefully pushing it back down again. Repeating this movement helps you become familiar with controlling the clay while also preparing it for the centering process.

In this video, Florian demonstrates how to bring the clay up and back down while keeping everything under control — a great technique to practise as you become more comfortable at the wheel.

2. How to Center Clay on the Pottery Wheel

Centering is one of the most important skills to learn when throwing pottery.

The aim is to get the clay rotating perfectly around the centre of the wheel without any wobble. Once the clay is properly centered, you have a stable starting point from which you can begin creating your pot.

Florian takes you through hand and arm positioning, how to apply pressure to the clay, wheel speed and how to recognise when your clay is truly centered. Don’t worry if this takes a little while to master — centering is one of those skills that becomes much more natural with practice.

3. How to Open the Clay and Form the Base

Once your clay is centered, it’s time to turn that solid lump of clay into the beginnings of a pot.

This stage involves carefully opening the centre of the clay before widening the opening and establishing the base of your piece. Getting the depth and thickness of the base right is important, as this becomes the foundation for everything that follows.

Florian demonstrates how to find the centre, create the initial opening, check the thickness of the base and gradually pull the clay outward while keeping everything centered and controlled.

4. How to Pull Up the Walls

Now your pot really starts to take shape.

Pulling the walls involves gradually moving clay from the thicker section at the bottom of your piece upwards, making the walls taller and thinner with each pull. The goal isn't to force all of the clay upwards at once, but to make a series of smooth, controlled pulls.

Florian demonstrates how to position your hands and fingers, apply consistent pressure and steadily lift the clay upwards while maintaining an even wall thickness.

This is where all of the previous steps — coning, centering and opening — begin to come together and that initial lump of clay starts looking like a pot.

5. How to Lift Your Pot Off the Wheel

Once you've finished throwing, the final step is getting your pot safely off the wheel without damaging or distorting all of that hard work.

In this video, Florian demonstrates his approach to preparing and lifting a freshly thrown pot from the wheel. He covers cleaning up the piece, removing excess water and slip, wiring the pot from the wheel head, and carefully lifting and transferring it. He also demonstrates a few different approaches for particularly soft or delicate pots.

It’s worth noting that Florian’s technique is a little different from the method we teach in our classes. That’s one of the reasons we wanted to include this video. There’s rarely only one way to do something in pottery, and it can be really helpful to see how different potters approach the same process.

As you gain experience, you’ll come across lots of different techniques, tools and little tricks. Watching how other potters work — and then experimenting to find what works best for you — is all part of developing your own way of working with clay.

Practise, Practise, Practise

Throwing on the pottery wheel is as much about developing a feel for the clay as it is about understanding the individual steps.

Your first pots probably won’t be perfect — and they don’t need to be. Concentrate on learning how the clay responds to your hands and getting comfortable with each stage of the process.

Work through these videos one step at a time, give yourself plenty of clay to practise with, and enjoy the process. Before long, centering, opening and pulling will start to feel far more natural.