Coil Project - Face Mugs!

Last week I showed my students a video I found on iTunes U about the potters of the Catawba Valley. Specifically about Berlin Craig and his face jugs. So to make their mug project a little more interesting, they have to put a face on it! I thought you might like to see the first finished face mug ...


And several more "in progress"...









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The first summer school pots!

Most of the students have finished their pinch pots, with some interesting designs.
























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And the fun resumes!

On your mark...Get set...GO!!!  First day of summer school... trying to cram 90 days worth of teaching into 15.  All the drawings are done at home, and the clay work in class...4 hours of class...every day...(take aspirin here)...

The first week they make a pinch bowl, the second week a coiled mug, and the third week a slab plate.

At least they will get to experience all three techniques, and end up with three items they can use at home.

     For those of you who follow this blog to see my work and my attempts to try new forms, I will include the following link to my new personal blog - TropiClay Studio .  I decided to separate the student work from the personal work to give them their our own venue.  For those whose blogs I have been following, I will connect with you to follow your adventures on the new blog.  I wish there was a way to just export all those connections to the new blog, but it doesn't appear so.  Guess it's the copy/paste one at a time trick.

Summer School

I have two sessions coming up, starting June 18 - 3 weeks each session. I will be giving them the same research project to do, so expect some emails from students asking about your pottery and your process. Once again I want to thank you all for helping this next generation experience this great art form.
At this time I am starting another blog just for my personal work, and will leave this blog for the student's work and things pertaining to the classroom only.




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Th-th-th-that's all folks!

Well, it's the last day to get anything done before the break. Today the classes wanted to see an example of how the trimming tools are used. Using the two demos from yesterday, I showed them a basic foot on this


yunomi,


And something a little more complicated with this little pot.








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Ready for bisque ...

Today I finished trimming and stamping my demos from Friday.
A trio of mugs





A serving bowl


A small pot the size of the mugs


A flat lipped vase


And a cookie jar





Did two more demos


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Demo Day

The students are basically done for the year (except the ones feverishly trying to get their grade up). So today I brought out my wheel, did a demo or two for each class, then let them try their hand at throwing. All of them were amazed to watch the form rise higher on each pull. "Thats so easy! Why couldn't we do that instead of all this hard hand-building!" They quickly discovered it wasn't as easy as it looks.
So they wanted to see how to make things fatter


and how to make things really skinny ( I got some wide eyes with the flat lip on this thin necked vase).


I used the cow's tongue tool to compress the bottoms on these, and a stick with a ball on the end to push the belly out on these large mug forms.


Then made a cookie jar with a domed lid, using a lid master tool to measure the inside lip of the jar, and the outside diameter of the lid.


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