Violin Finished!

Ladies and Gentlemen, The moment we've all been waiting for! My violin tea pot is out of the kiln and finished! This piece was a real struggle. From the actual building of it to the final glazing, I didn't really know what I was doing. Pretty much everything that could go wrong a piece, went wrong here. I didn't consider the size of the kiln, I ran out of time and made no supports, I didn't wrap the piece correctly so it dried out and broke.... well, I think that's enough of that. Obviously a lot went wrong on the way, but in the end, I'm actually proud of this piece. I should give it some dramatic name like Perseverance, or something. Because that's what this piece is made out of... Pure, unadulterated determination.

Mrs. Gleeson, thank you so so so sooooo much for everything you've done for us these past years. You're one of the best teachers I've ever had. You're always ready to listen to anything I had to say (and we both know I talk a lot, so that's saying something). Thanks for putting up with my... uhmm-- Non-existent planning skills (especially with this piece, jeez. ) You're really the one that made any of this possible. I promise to visit a bit next year! Love, Vicky

Final Grade (sounds like a movie title)

Hey, so. End of the year, huh? I can't really believe we're graduating already. The last pieces I worked on this year (sniffle) were my pitchers. I decided to use a thick glaze for the big pitcher in hope that it will help the handle and the whole piece in general hold together better. The little pitcher was supposed to have flowers, but it looks like the wax resist wasn't really agreeing with me. They kind of turned out like stars, which is also pretty cute, so I'm happy anyways. 

 I've decided to glaze my violin/viola thing from November. I'm gonna have to come in during a couple of the vacation days, but over all, I think it will be worth it. I worked so hard on it, that I just have to finish it at this point. Last time I did a blog post I was really hungry and that made me angry, but I don't think I can just throw this baby away. There'll probably be one more blog post about it, so this isn't the last one. No tears yet, Mrs. Gleeson!

May Post

My lantern came out! I think it looks pretty cool, with all the different colors and animals. Right now, I'm working on glazing my pitchers. The first pitcher (above) was alright, since I threw it in one piece. I had a hard time throwing the second one, though. I wanted to do it in two halves, so I threw a bowl and a top part for it. It was pretty difficult making the shape that I imagined for the top half, and since I have a tendency to make the rims of my bowls very thin, it was difficult to attach the pieces together later on. 

My violin teapot piece came out of the kiln, too... But I'm still not sure whether to keep it or not. It'll probably look better once I glaze it, but it's already cracked multiple times where the neck connects to the body of the instrument. I'm kind of  starting to think it's more trouble than it's worth, but I worked so hard on it at the beginning of the year that I feel like I should keep it. Maybe I'll set it aside for now and work on it when I'm not so hungry. I gotta be in a better mood for this stuff. 

4th Quarter Week 1

   

 Right now, I'm working on my pitcher. I made a rough shape last class, but the angles made the structure too weak. I've let it dry out a bit, and hopefully today, I will finish up my pitcher today. I tend to make the handles too heavy, so I'll also try to make a thinner handle than usual. I also made a little bowl. I don't really know what I'll use it for, but I managed to rescue it from an almost-pitcher I made the other day. 

End of 3rd Quarter

      I finished glazing my bottles the other day! I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, although I kind of wish I had chosen a different color for the reddish one. I recently got back on the wheel to start my pitcher project. I'm thinking of building it in two parts, so I won't have as hard a time with the amounts of  clay. I've never thrown a piece in two parts, so this will be a learning experience. 

       The only piece I have hanging is my lantern. I've started glazing it, but I was having difficulties with the glaze. I'm glazing it with different variations of True Celadon. Each wall is a different color, depending on the animal it portrays. I had a hard time keeping the glaze on only the wall it belonged on when I was dipping them, so now I'm going to try brushing on the glazes. Today's goal is to finish glazing the lantern. 

      I really liked the lantern project! I guess I was feeling inspired or something when I started it... I usually get tired of hand building pretty quickly, but this time, I felt good about it the whole way through. 

March Update

I've done a lot of stuff over the past months! There was an accident with my violin teapot/ wall hanging piece. We are going to work on gluing it back together so that I can glaze it, hopefully soon. Right after I finished my tea pot, I started with my bottles. I remember finding the bottles pretty easy once I got back into the swing of the wheel. I originally planned to sgraffito more of them, but I was short on time since my violin took me so long. I've glazed only one of them completely. The other three still need to be glazed. I will probably try to do that today, after I finish my lantern.

Now, I have to finish my lantern. It will definitely go to the kiln today, I just have to clean it up and smooth it a little more on the inside. This lantern is my pride and joy... It forced me to go home and work on designs instead of just winging it when I got to class. Each of the five faces of the lantern has a carving of a vertebrate animal. I had an especially difficult time with the frog, but he ended up alright. Frog legs have the weirdest structure I have ever seen.

On a different note, my hand buit vase with the green sgraffito flower is going to be displayed at Cityspace today. I'm really glad I made it in time. Hopefully, I'll be able to go down town with it and stand by it for a little while during the art show.

Hand Built Teapot

            In this project, I rolled more slabs than I ever have before. I learned how to hollow out solid pieces with the trimming tool. At one point I forgot to place a support inside the violin's body, and that was almost catastrophic, so I learned to improvise and figure out a way to place little support beams in. I have orchestra every day before ceramics, so the music in my head inspired me to create a teapot based on the instrument I play. The principle of design most shown my work would probably be Unity. I'm hoping that when I put the pieces together, they'll look like they belong there. 
            As you can see, I'm not done with this project yet. I still have to attach the pieces and make a bridge and some sort of support for the teapot to stand on it's side. I have not glazed my two complementing vases either, but right now the viola is my priority.

Glazing

For this piece, I used the green velvet underglaze, and scratched away my design. I then applied some of the purple underglaze, and mixed my own variation of light purple to accent the flower petals. After doing this on the lip of the vase, I decided to mix a lighter green underglaze to accent the leaves, too. Once it came out of the kiln, I applied Transparent to make it smooth and shiny.

Sgraffito

           Sgraffito is a super cool glazing and designing technique, where the glaze is applied before firing the pot, and the design is later scratched off the suface of the pot. I really enjoyed this process, and I'm looking forward to using this technique again. It was pretty nerve-racking in the beginning, but I think that'll happen to me every time I have to carve the design onto the clay. If I could do anything differently, it might be to practice with all the different tools before I actually start on the piece. All in all, I'm really happy about how it turned out. 

 This Sgraffito wall art thing is awesome! 

I missed you too, Mrs. Gleeson!

      Ah, Mrs. Gleeson! I did so many things this summer! Everything is a little hard to believe, but I went to both Disney world and traveled around Europe. My cousins and my uncle and aunt came up from Argentina for two weeks and we all went to Disney. Since they're so little, dragged my parents on all the roller coasters with me. The kids would get tired quickly, too, so in the end, I was the only one that wanted to stay in the parks for longer, while everyone else was ready to go back to the hotel and to the pool. Okay and then the coolest part;  I freaking TOURED EUROPE with a MUSIC GROUP. Jeez, I'm stil not quite sure if that was all real. We mades stops in Austria, Germany, Italy, Croatia, and Slovenia. Everything over there is so old... yet beautiful. There's little colorful houses with red shingled roofs, the mountains are green everywhere,  and their water good enough to drink. Croatia really surprised us; we spent three days at a beach, swimming in the crystal waters of the Mediterranean Sea. 

      In short, my summer was spectacular. As for books, I read a couple of John Green books I hadn't read before, but I can't think of anything really awesome. If you haven't read The Book Thief, you definitely should. 

      I just really wan to get on the wheel and see what happens! And I promised my mom a pitcher at some point this year. 

• Title your blog post:  "I miss you too, Mrs. Gleeson!"
• Write about one thing that happened to you over the summer (good, bad, exciting).
• Any cool links I should know about?  Good books, movies, music?
• Do you have any ideas for a project that we can do?

Third Quarter Post

   
   This month, I've been working on my candle holder. It is important to take your work off of the wooden boards when the project starts drying out. The wood board takes in the moisture and might make your piece bone dry if you wait too long. With this project, I focused on Unity and Balance and Texture. From this project, I learned that it is much easier to come into a project with design ideas ready, than to try to invent things on the spot. Some stencils are easier to use than others, and the roller designs are difficult to keep straight.
      The roller wasn't as hard to use as I thought. I also learned that it is important to cut the clay AFTER using a large design on it so that the sizes are all the same. It is better to quadruple check in the beginning than have to make up for it in the end. I would have probably liked if I could have finished this project faster, but that is more of a personal problem. It would also be nice to have a mini-lesson on accents and how to use the expensive glazes. 

February Post

Right now, I am working on the candle holder project. I just started last class, so all I have is one slab ready. Right now the biggest problem I'm having is based on design, but that's nothing new. I'll have to make a decision as to how I want the final product to look, but that's an internal struggle. There are so many choices! I am glad the slab machine is easy to use, and I've had no problems with it. 

My cups came out of the fire this week! The yellow one used the same glaze twice, the Goldenrod Shino, and held about 10 ounces. The brownish reddish cup used Chun Plum and Turkish Amber. It held 12 ounces of water. The dark blue cup was glazed with Dark Blue and True Celadon and held 11 ounces. Lastly, the green cup was glazed with True Celadon and Metallic Green, and it held 9 ounces.
I made a couple of extra cups, but only put handles on the ones above. I also finished up glazing my coil pot (finally) using Seaspray and True Celadon, and it is watertight.

End of Semester!! Half Way Through!

       I have been working on making cups on the wheel for the past month or so. Here they are as bisque ware, glazed, but without the second firing. Among these there are also some extra credit projects I made in the beginning of November. Back then, I didn't know how to use the little bendy, blue tool used when throwing on the wheel to make the clay curve (AKA The Rib); and you can really see the difference with how thick the walls were before. 

       My glazed coil pot is in the kiln right now. 

Happy Holidays, Lots of New Stuff!

• 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.

       If the clay is bone dry and you try to trim it, you will have to apply more pressure to cut in. Pushing against so much might cause it to fly off wheel, and you could lose your piece. This would also dull the tools. It would be impossible to score and slip anything to clay that is bone dry because  you can't scratch the surface.

       If the piece is too soft when you try to trim it, the tools will cut into it, and the centrifugal motion might deform the entire piece.

    I still have to finish the coil pot, and add a little bit more to the top of it.

Glazing Part 2

     I used the Oasis and the Seaspray glazes on my pinch pot last month. I poured the Seaspray on my entire piece first, and after putting wax resist on the parts I wanted just Seaspray colored, I poured Oasis on the entire piece again. After the glaze came out I noticed there were some problems with dripping. This could have been because the kiln did not heat and cool properly, but I also think I should have left more wax room at the bottom in case of an accident. The dripped glaze formed into sharp shards on the bottom of my piece, but it could have also ruined somebody else's. Hopefully, we'll get the kiln fixed, or just fire our pieces in another one next time.

First Days on the Wheel

      Overall, I worked around nine days on the wheel. By that time, I feel like I had gotten the hang of most of the things, however, I remember having a lot of trouble bringing the clay up in the beginning. I always either pulled at the top too much and ripped the clay off of the wheel, or was way too shy and did nothing but dry the clay with my hands. After managing to build it up, it would spin out of control as I squashed it down with sheer force instead of letting the wheel's turns do the job for me. I also remember having trouble with the water. It took me quite a while to figure out how wet the clay should be so I could control it best. Most of the clay would end up as slip by the time I was done.
     In the end, I was really proud of my cylinder. So many days of work went into it and it was great to finally understand what I was doing. I really enjoyed working on the wheel, and it feels really strange now to be working with drier clay and just my hands. Plus, now I have some cute little bowls and dishes to look forward to glazing and taking home.

Glazing

      Before glazing a piece, you have to wash your hands and wipe off the bique ware so that the glaze sticks to the piece and not the dust around it. Any grain of dust could make the glaze look grainy, and the oils of your hand could make the glaze slip off. You always have to apply wax resist to the bottom of your piece so that if the glaze drips within the fireing process it does not stick and mess up the pieces around it. 

      When using a bucket glaze, you must keep the pot in contact with the glaze for one or two seconds only. If you try to brush on a bucket glaze, it is unlikely that you will manage to get all of the layers of the glaze on the piece. Some components of the glaze may be separated (like oil and water) and you not be able to get the heavier components at the bottom of the bucket. 

Where I Am Now

       My pinch pot has changed a lot from how I originally envisioned it. In the beginning I really had no clue what i was making, and now I'm proud of how it turned out. I used to laugh at my work because it looked like an old fashioned milk jug, and now it looks like a respectable vase. I was able to keep good control of the clay, I think, but it didn't always do exactly what I wanted. Once I started using specific tools for smoothing it and shaping the outside, the clay responded better. Since the neck ended up so much thinner than I first intended, I had to work on shaping my vase solely from the outside. The angle that sloped down from the neck was the hardest to shape from the outside.

    I was really nervous about the line design, and the pattern turned out completely different from what I first envisioned. I wanted something with curls and spirals, but quickly changed my mind when I attempted those on the extra clay. There was also supposed to be four "petals" around the pot, but I realized it looked too crowded and left it at three.

    I believe I am done with this vase for now. I'm going to leave it to dry, think of glaze colors, and move on to the coil project.

Pinch Pot: Flower Vase

The "slip and score" is a technique used when connecting two pieces of clay. I will have to use this technique to pt together the top, curvy part of my vase to the base I made on the first day of the project. First, I'll score the clay, scratching up the rim of the base and top that I want to connect together. Then, I'll wet my finger and pass the water over the scored surface. The water will serve like a glue of sorts, while the scored surfaces are kind of like a jigsaw puzzle fitting together snugly. This way, the piece won't crack, and it will be much sturdier and harder to take apart.

To show symmetry in this piece I make sure to apply pressure on all sides of the piece evenly. At one point, the curvy part at the top of the vase curved more sharply on one end. I'm trying to use both of my hands when shaping the outside. The outside also has to be smooth, so I fix each accidental scratch right after I make it, or as soon as I notice it. The symmetry will be more evident once the clay has been fired and I can start painting. Until that time, I will keep working on it... Stay tuned, Gleeson :)