This is one that I started a few days ago, its still wet currently and as its winter I doubt it will dry very fast. Want to wait for it to dry a bit more before smoothing it and then leave to completely dry and at some point start a fire in the garden to finish it.

Used a slab of clay as a base and placed leaves around it so that it doesn’t stick to the pot as I make it but to also give a bit of a sturdy platform I can pick up and rotate. From a previous attempt picking it up often caused the clay to flex and crack. Although that is probably also due to being pretty poor quality clay, this was done the next day with a different batch that has far better plasticity. Or it could just be that the first one needed more time for water to soak into the clay as it had been pretty much completely dry before.

Using leaves to prevent something sticking seems like it could be a useful method to mould clay against the object. Perhaps a way to make use of the lower quality clay that cracks very easily when trying to shape it normally.

Seconded! I’ve always wanted to try this.