How I made my first pot!

Here are my finished pots! The small pot is the one I made on the wheel and the larger pot is one that Gill made for me to practice turning and glazing.
In my first lesson I made the little pot on the wheel, but a lot has happened to it since then.
First I had to turn it. This removes the excess clay and gives the pot a better shape. I had to remove a lot of clay from the little pot. Basically you use a sharp blade to remove the excess clay . Its a bit like shaving wood.I forgot to take the camera with me the day we did this so no pictures. The pot is then fired and it it then ready for glazing.
The bottom of the pots are brushed with wax so that the glaze does not get on the bottom and from there onto the Kiln shelves. Gill had already made the glazes so I just had to stir them. Glaze was poured into the inside of the pots and then quickly tipped out trying not to let it drip down the outside of the pot. Because I had some drips we had to scrape it off and then the outside was glazed by dipping the inverted pots into the glaze. The pots were then carefully put into the kiln making sure they were not touching. Finally Gill calculated the firing times and temperatures. It takes several hours to reach the final firing temperature which was about 1250 degrees centigrade. it also takes several hours for the Kiln to cool down before opening but finally by pots came home with me.