Jacqueline's new class!

I signed up for another community education class again! Yay!

Same class as before (saturdays 10-1pm, + open lab 1-4pm), only a different instructor. Zach apparently got horrible ratings as an instructor (I'm not surprised, he wasn't the warmest person), so now Michelle Summers is teaching this course, and I can tell she is a lot more interested in helping all the students. PLUS the enrollment of the class tripled from the last time I was taking it. The first class was April 5! This last weekend!

First day was a first day. We got our lockers, went over the ceramics lab rules, firing deadlines, and how the course will be run. She took people on a tour of the ceramics lab, and I snuck away to buy my Mac 10 clay receipts from the bookstore. You have to take the receipt to the ceramics lab to collect the clay.

I had to sit through Michelle's throwing demo (always nice to see the basics again), and FINALLY at like 11:30am I was able to get my clay from Michelle.

I made 4 balls, all slightly larger than I'm normally comfortable with, and sat down at a wheel. I tried playing with some of the techniques Michelle showed us, and some of it worked, some of it didn't. A really large, friendly woman, probably late 30's, sat at the wheel next to me. She hasn't thrown in 5 years so was a little nervous about how it would go. On the other side of me sat a very quiet girl in her 20's.

I, inspired by my gift from hana: a BEAUTIFUL sphere that was pit fired, decided to try to throw a sphere. Never thrown a sphere before actually. Really, my underlying goal is to make a teapot (or two, or three, or four) this class. I kinda figure a sphere could be a good shape for a teapot!

My first ball, altho perhaps a little awkward at first with the centering, worked out! Michelle came by to offer some tips to the large lady next to me who was having a worse time than me with her centering, and I listened in...
* Mac 10 takes a gentle touch. you don't have to use too much pressure to work it!
* you shouldn't allow yourself to feel any friction with the clay, if that happens you're working too dry
* make sure to compress and recompress the pot's base, and eliminate any standing water, or extra clay on the bat. These things can all mess you up.

I adjusted what I was doing to take her advice into account, and whoah! the clay started behaving better for me! I pulled a wide cylinder, maybe only 7 inches tall if that. Then I pushed out the sides and pulled in the rim to make it into a sphere. If it becomes a teapot it will be a VERY SMALL one. I bet the final piece will be about the size of the pot hana gave me, actually.

I then used the next ball, and didn't really want to do the same thing (I'm learning that altho the balls are a touch larger than I'm used to, they still aren't large enough to make a larger pot like I need). I really worked this ball cause I was being undecided about what I wanted to do with it... first pulling a cylinder, then making it into a sphere, than changing my mind and pulling the opening outward slightly so that I could put a second pot inside it, and then I decided this pot wasn't quite large enough for what I was thinking, so I turned it back into a sphere... AND THEN I got bored of the sphere shape, and wanted a taller piece, so I straighted the sides of the cylinder, but the top still arcs in like a half dome slightly.

Meanwhile, quiet 20's girl was pulling a sphere. huh. See, that wasn't a shape in the demo even. She was TOTally copying what I was doing. hmmm...

Oh yeah, AND large lady was actually farting quite a bit. That was really gross.

Anyway, at this point I borrowed Judy's calipers (Judy is taking this class again also! she's very sweet, so I was happy to see her again), and tried to throw a couple lids "off the hump" of my 3rd ball. Attempt 1 went badly. Attempt 2 and 3 were better, but I'm not sure any of them will yield usable lids. I need to get my own calipers I think... and a hole punch.

And, then it was like 1:40pm or so... and I had to get to the convention center to pick up my race day packet by 3pm, so I bagged ball #4, cleaned up my area, wrapped my pieces in plastic and put them on our class shelves, and headed out (putting all my stuff in my locker).

It felt good to be throwing again. I can't wait for the next class!
hee.