3rd Quarter Project

The project I have been working on this quarter is cups on the wheel. An important part of finishing the cups is what happens after they are formed on the wheel. Directly after being on the wheel, cups are put on a wooden board to dry. It is good to remove the cups from the wooden boards once the bottom is firm enough to stay in place on it's own. If the cups are left on the boards for too long, they will dry out completely and then it will be impossible to trim the bottoms.

When making the cups, I mainly focused on shape and form because each cup needed to have a unique shape about it. I tried to put some element of movement in the shape to keep the eye traveling along the cup.

I learned a lot of things from this project, the biggest thing being patience. It took a long time for me to get used to making cups on the wheel and getting them tall enough. At one point I was really frustrated with myself, but I kept going and eventually I was able to get it. I also learned that the wheel is difficult and have gained an appreciation for how hard it is to make something that at first glance looks so simple.

This project was pretty interesting as is, and by interesting I mean hard, but one thing that could be added is a line design on at least one of the cups. But overall, it was fun and hopefully the end result will be a couple nice cups that can be useful around my house.

Here is a picture of some of my cups before I glazed them:

February Post

    I am currently working on the cup project, which requires 4 cups that hold around 10 oz to be made on the wheel. The cups should all have different shapes, not just cylinders with handles. At this point, I am almost done. The cup project was very difficult for me at the beginning, because I couldn't seem to keep the clay centered on the wheel. But, after a few days of destroying things, I started making some appropriately sized cups and the project has progressed quite well since. Another problem that I have had is using the rib to shape where the cup bulges and narrows.
    Making the handles and trimming the cups has come pretty easily to me. To make a handle, you get a thick coil of clay wet and gently pull it down over and over, rotating it every few pulls until it is the correct size and shape. Trimming makes the bottom of the cup look good, and it is done when the clay is leather hard.
    Here are pictures of three of my cups before glazing:

Also, my coasters have finally gone through the kiln! Here is the finished result: 

End of Semester One

The semester is coming to a close, and my candle holder has finally emerged from the depths of the kiln, looking more beautiful than ever. The two coats of Turkish Amber glaze shine like mud puddles after a rainy day. The glaze also soaked into the textured lines fairly well. The smooth cutouts of the phrase "Light a candle in the mind" stand out from the rough textured pieces. Here are the pics:

I was also had time to make an extra credit project in this unit. Coasters!! Personally, I think coasters are extremely fun and useful household devices. The name kind of reminds me of rollar coasters, and those are the best. Except, if you think about it, coasters and roller coasters have opposite purposes because one is meant to make things safer, while the other is supposed to make you feel unsafe and daring. Roller coasters are actually pretty safe, though. They always make sure to test them a lot before letting people on.

So, I put flower designs on my coasters because I am a girl who enjoys pretty, flowery things. They have not gone through their glaze firing yet, so it may be hard to see the patterns in this photo because of the clear glaze. Underneath the clear, there are different colored underglazes: (starting in the top left and going clockwise) red, yellow, white and purple. Hopefully they will show through after they've been fired. I'll be sure to post the pics!

Happy end of the semester! More importantly, this Friday is Lee-Jackson Day in the wonderful Commonwealth of Virginia, so bake yourself some Confederacy cake and have a good time.

Happy Holidays!

It is almost holiday break here, and we're in the home stretch of finishing our current pieces! I am working on a candle holder, but it is in the kiln so there are no pictures to show you. The candle holder combines different types of textures, with very rough patches of lines and dots interspersed with holes spelling the words "Light a Candle in the Mind". The finished project will look cool, I promise!

In the spirit of the holidays, here are some tokens of knowledge about clay:

• Leather Hard - Clay which has dried sufficiently to be stiff, but is still damp enough to be joined to other pieces. 
• Bone Dry - Clay that is completely dried but not yet fired.  Clay forms are most fragile at this stage.

It is important to connect slab work (like the candle holder) when the clay is leather dry because slabs are hard enough to stay in place, but not so dry that they won't attach to the other slabs.

Happy holidays, and hopefully there will be lots of fun pictures to show next time!

Glazing Part 2

The coil pot has finally been glazed and fired! I dipped this pot in the Chun Plum and Blue Rutile glazes. See if you can find the hidden heart in the design! Well, in truth, I did not hide it. After dipping the pot in Chun Plum, I painted wax resist over the heart so that no blue would get on it. That way, it is a surprising little pop of red underneath the swirls.

I think I am happy with my coil pot, though the blue separated itself from the plum more than I expected. This would be prevented in the future by not putting that combination of glazes on a coil pot. You can see from the picture that the blue has sunk into the lines made by the coils and swirls.

Update on my extra credit project, the glazed pencil holder:

Glazing

Glazing is an intensive process that must be completed with the correct steps. The 'bisqueware' is in a very delicate stage, because it has been fired for the first time but does not have any glaze. The dry clay will absorb whatever touches it, so you must wash your hands well to avoid oily spots. It is also important to wipe off any dust that has collected on the pot so that there is no barrier between the glaze and the clay.

When glazing, you need to apply wax resist when you are dipping into a bucket or have a lid or edge that will touch something else. With the buckets of glaze, the pot should only be dipped for roughly one second. Bucket glazes can only be dipped, not brushed. This is because the minerals in those glazes would not all go smoothly on the pot if a brush was used.

Now, the part you've all been waiting for: the pictures!

Finished pinch pot

Unglazed coil pot

Extra credit!! Pencil Holder

Hand Building: Coil Pot

The coil pot is coming along well so far! Making the coils was difficult at the beginning, but it got easier as I went along.

I have followed my original silhouette. The pot ended up a little wider than I originally intended it to be, but it still has the straight sides. If I do change anything from my drawing, it would be in my detailing around the top edge.

Right now, there are groups of spiral coils around the top. The finished product should have spirals all the way around in an asymmetrical pattern that is somewhat appealing.