Seven Pots

Today was the last day of my ceramics class, and the day I finally got to see how six of the seven pieces I made turned out.

One piece had already been fired, on the day we did a raku firing. I selected my coil pot to fire that day, and used white crackle glaze. It didn't crack as much as I would have liked, but it did crack some.

For my pinch pot, I used a glaze called Vegas red. I really like the way the color turned out!

The third method of handbuilding we learned was slab building. I made two pieces using this method. My first attempt cracked a little in the bisque firing, and cracked even more in the glaze firing. Oh well.

 

My second slab pot fared better. I added a lid to this one. One of the class requirements was to include a lid or a handle on one piece (I did one of each). After the bisque firing, the lid fit best in one specific orientation. To help distinguish the correct placement, I added some decorative detail to the top and sides.

The piece I added a handle to (turning it into a mug) was the piece the instructor and I threw together to introduce me to the wheel. (In actuality, he did most of the work.) This was the last piece I glazed, and I got a little experimental, dipping one half in bamboo glaze and the other into a glaze called Hank's shino. The instructor said I should have done the shino first and then the bamboo. That would have prevented the strange bubbling that occurred where the two overlapped.

The last two pieces were also thrown. The smaller one is 100 percent my effort. While I was working on the taller one, another student helped some, demonstrating how to pull the clay up from the bottom.

Earlier in the quarter, I decided to take the class Pass/Fail to relieve myself of any "grade pressure" I might experience. Today, I told the instructor that I had enjoyed the class and gotten out of it what I had hoped to. 

Beginning Ceramics

So, even though I earned my AA degree in Graphic Design last month, I registered for one class this summer. Mostly for personal interest and recreational purposes. And to get me out of the house a couple times each week.

I decided I wanted to do sometime completely non-computer-related. The choices for summer quarter are somewhat limited, but I settled on Ceramics I.

The summer quarter is only 8 weeks long, as compared to the usual 11 weeks during the regular school year. Today is the beginning of the fourth week — already nearly halfway through the quarter.

Beginning today, we will learn about throwing on the wheel. But first, we learned about three other ways to make pottery — pinching (more can be done to refine the piece than is shown at this link, but this shows the basic method), coiling (you can smooth the outside of the pot to hide the coils, as well as the inside), and slab construction.

Here is a picture of my pinched bowl on the shelf, waiting for its first (bisque) firing.

I also have a two coil pots and two slab pots underway, but they are not ready for bisque firing yet.