Turns out, my Saturday class is only 4 hours long, followed by a 3 hour "open lab" time that other people from other classes can come in and use also.
This works fine for me... I'll still try to use all 7 hours myself, cause I can.
My class is small. Only 8 people were registered. ALSO, as far as I can tell, no one is annoying! Hurrah!
The instructor, Zach Hamilton, told us that he was willing to leave the class syllabus open for whatever we wanted to spend our own time on, and he will give us advice and help while we are working on our stuff. He said we could do raku if we like (if there is class consensus on a date, cause it's a group effort), or whatever. It's nice to have the open options... but at the same time I'm SO glad we took that for-credit class 5 years ago that went over ceramics with some rigor and some annoying assignments that forced us to try things because I understand the medium better now. Before that class, if you handed me a lump of clay and told me to "have fun" I'm not sure I'd have attempted anything that would have even worked out.
A sweet retired lady named Judy and I bought our Mac10 clay from the book store and went straight for the wheel. She's been throwing pots for 10 years, so she's pretty good. I was a little embarrassed to be next to her, unsure if I was even going to be able to center the lump of clay I was working with.
Luckily for me, things seemed to work out better at the wheel than I was expecting. I had to convince myself to slow down a little, and quit expecting instant results. I was more comfortable working with the clay on the dry side rather than on the wet side. That's strange for me, I believe last time I tried to throw I was always a muddy mess.
At the wheel, I tried to pay more attention to the speed of the wheel for the work I was trying to do (something I remember always having trouble with), only have a couple points of contact with the clay, etc. I trashed 3 attempts, but kept 2. Two bowls... ones larger than the other. Neither are "perfect", but I decided to not be so picky, and would much rather bring stuff home that are slightly less-than-perfect than hold out for myself to throw something beyond my current experience and ability. I wanna have stuff from this class to admire!
Anyway, after 4 years of not being at a wheel, it felt good to try it again.
After this I made 4 test tiles to sample some class glazes on. They stand up on a little stand. On the front I made a textured surface, and on the back I used colored agobe: dark blue, black, light blue, and brown, so I can see what the glaze will look like over them. With the 4 test tiles I made I can sample 2 different glazes on them and see the results. I'll triple dip them in a specific pattern too, so I can see how 1, 2, and 3 coats of the glaze will act over the texture and the agobe.
I'm going to try to not go too crazy with glaze this time so atleast I have a better idea of what I'm thinking of doing with my pieces. Glazing is usually so difficult...
After this, I decided to buy a bag of hand-building clay also, since I didn't really do ANY hand building for the past 2 classes I was in, and I really missed it.
I hand-rolled out a slab of this clay, and then made a tallish cylinder with it (4.5" x 2.25"?), then went ahead and attached a base. At this point I was looking at it and thinking, "yeah, looks like a decent cylinder,"and this was annoying me. I decided to warp it by pushing my thumb into the side from both the inside and outside all over it to give it a lumpy look (keeping the lip and the base as close to a circle as possible). I like it.
Then I pulled a handle and attached it. It's a bit of a wonky handle, but I figured that was fine, since the mug exterior has been intentionally wonked. Zach came by at this point and showed me another alternative to making a pulled handle. I was so surprised, I'd never even considered making a handle before that wasn't pulled! I kept my handle as it was, but decided to try to the hand-built handle that Zach showed me at some point also.
It was a fun class, I'm already looking forward to next week also!
Oh yeah, and for the class we each got lockers out in the hallway where we could keep our clay and tools. That made things kinda convenient. I had to go buy a combination lock, but I'm thrilled to have my own storage space just outside the classroom.
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2 comments:
That's great you were so comfortable with the wheel! I think the kind of clay you use has a lot to do with how easy you find it, and how wet you are with it. Sounds like you were using a clay that could be thrown more dry. That's nice. I think my clay is asking for more moisture than I was using before. It's also a bit sharp on my hands.
I was just frantically working to keep busy. the wheel throwers were shocked when I started hand building. I guess it's not common to happily swap back and forth between the two!
what can I say? I like being unique.
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