Ceramics

There's a reason why I've put off ceramics til now- it's not usually my cup of tea. I appreciate what other people do, and I've collected some pieces of pottery, but I don't enjoy doing it as much as other things. I think it's difficult to produce things that don't look like crap. Or like a grade school project. And even if you make something fabulous, it could blow up in the kiln- or get scarred from something else blowing up. There's a lot you can't control.

Anyhow, this is what we've been up to so far:

Out first project was hand-building rattles with holder of some sort. I made a hollow ladybug with leaf and a hollow ball with a shell-type holder. And they rattle too! I was happy that the clay balls didn't get stuck inside. You paint the red stuff on them, they're fired, and then they get pit fired, which is basically sticking them in a bonfire. This produces the black, smoky look. I may have mine pit-fired again, they're not that dark.






We also tried some cylinders on the wheel, I am pretty bad at them! These were made on only my second try on the wheel, I imagine I'll get better as I try more. I haven't done this since eighth grade, had to remember how! I have a harder time pulling up the clay so it's not such fat walls. The crumpled one on the right was a mistake, but I liked the crumples so I kept it. Basically, these were just practice so see what the glazes look like. We're doing bowls next, they're a bit easier.

We also did a coil building project- you had to sculpt some sort of human figure using coils of clay that were smoothed out. It's a pretty solid way to build, but it's time consuming. I had more time on the body, I was rushed with the head and would have liked it to be different. I liked how the colored slips/clear glaze turned out, I was aiming for a "drawn" or "sketched" look.

When you build this way, there's a high chance of air bubbles, so I was glad that it didn't blow up in the kiln like other people's!



That's what I've done so far this semester. Now we're working on boxes built from slabs of clay.