My partner and I recently signed up for our first hand building class after doing a few wheel classes. We goofed on signing up for the next session of classes and there was only room in hand building so we thought we'd give it a go!
My first impression is that it is both a lot easier and a lot harder than wheel. We were going step by step with the instructor so it took longer than doing it individually but we still only made the one pot in the whole 2.5 hour session. It is a lot more forgiving. I was able to reinforce a thin section at my seam for example, whereas with wheel if you look at your piece funny it collapses.
I see a lot more opportunities to get creative and add embellishments and do weird shapes. I look forward to bringing the skills I am learning and combine it with the ease and grace of wheel thrown objects ๐
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I think hand building would be worse off with an off batch of reclaim! The wheel is more like working with a fluid that needs integrity but hand building totally depends on the structural integrity of the clay.
We've figured out the reclaim a lot better lately - it is improving for sure! (by we I mean my partner - he does all that stuff).