May Post

The end of senior year has finally arrived! I can't believe how fast this year has gone by and I am honestly going to miss having this class so much. I'm going to miss you so much Mrs. Gleeson!!

My final project was the pitcher/creamer project. I made two creamers. I messed up the glaze on those two because I used green, white, and black underglaze but I forgot to dip it into the Clear bucket before I set it out for firing. So that is why they are not functional anymore...:(
I also made a pitcher on the wheel. I used Iron Red followed by White for the glazes and it turned out really nice! I am looking forward to using it.
I also made a gravy bowl, which was the very last thing that I made this year, and I couldn't be more proud of it. I used Chun Plum for the glaze and I absolutely love how it turned out. I can't wait to use it for Thanksgiving!
I will make sure to visit here after I'm gone. I will miss Ceramics very much.

4th Quarter: Week 1

Right now, I am working on pitchers and creamers. I have trimmed my creamer and it is ready for firing and I am currently working on making one of my pieces into a gravy bowl (the picture of it was in my last blog post). I plan on keeping these two pieces and maybe making a third piece as a creamer, but I do not plan on making a lot of pitchers and creamers because I am more focused on working on the pieces that I have so far.

End of 3rd Quarter

So I finished my lantern project. The lantern turned out pretty well! I worked so hard on it. The glaze did not completely come out like I wanted it, but it does look cool in a weird yet awesome way. For the glaze I brushed on Iron Red and then dunked the piece in Clear. I made a mistake of letting the brush stroke the piece. That is why the brush strokes are visible in the piece.
Now I am working on making pitchers and creamers. I like making creamers better so I am heading in that direction. One of the pictures is a creamer for milk. The second one I am planning on cutting the top part and making it into a gravy bowl. I decided that because the piece is too small for a pitcher and the shape would suit better for a gravy bowl. I plan on making more creamers and maybe a pitcher after spring break.
The reason I started on the pitcher project so late was that carving my lantern was so tedious and took a great amount of time. After carving, I waited for it to come out of the kiln so that I could glaze it. And the snow days did not help either!

March Update

I have been very busy over the past few months. I finally finished glazing my Eiffel Teapot. I do not have a picture of that because it is being showcased in the Cityspace art showcase which I am so excited about! I absolutely love how it turned out!
After that, I started glazing my vases. I used seaspray as the base and black and white for the yin and yang symbols.
Next, I started making bottles on the wheel. I ended up making four. They turned out pretty well. I decided to glaze them by making designs on them. For two of them, I used white as the base color and used blue, black, red, green, and yellow as the top coat colors to make my designs. For the remaining two bottles, I decided to spray on glaze for the top coat because I absolutely love using the spray machine! For one, I used Chun Plum as the base and sprayed on white. For the last one, I used Metallic Green and Oasis as the base and sprayed on blue.
After the bottles were done, I started on the next hand building project, the lantern. I have made it and am waiting for it to come out of the kiln so I can finally glaze it. I am really happy with how it looks like so far.

Week 12

1) i have officially finished my eiffel tower! it took a long long time but i finally finished it and i couldn't be more happy about the outcome. now i have to start working on making bottles on the wheel.

2) I am going to work on glazing my vases because i haven't done that yet. after that i will start on the wheel and anxiously wait for my eiffel tower to be fired!

Glazing/ Vase and Teapot project

I've finally finished my scraffito pot! i really enjoyed this project. For glazing i used the Velvet Blue underglaze and then used the colors yellow and red for the designs. i also mixed light red with yellow to get a orangish color for the flame designs on the pot. these colors were all brushed on. afterwards i dumped my piece in transparent to get that shiny look.

i have also finished making my two vases, and am currently working on my eiffel tower tea pot! i'm excited to see how it turns out!

The Teapot Project:
1) I had never hallowed out a piece of clay before so that was definitely one of the skills that i had to learn. especially in using the right tool for hallowing.
2) I came up with the idea of the eiffel tower teapot from looking at the 500 teapots book. there was a piece that had 4 legs and was tilted at the top and i loved the shape. so by looking at that i came up with the idea of making a eiffel tower with a tilted top for the spout.
3) The principle of design that is showcased in this project is movement because the thing that i'm most focused on while working on the project was the top and how i tilted it to make an awesome/original eiffel tower! i absolutely loved making this piece and can't wait to see the final look!

Sgraffito

Sgraffito is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colors to a moistened surface, or in ceramics, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive layers of contrasting slip, and then in either case scratching so as to produce an outline drawing.

I really liked all the steps to this project. I really enjoyed carving out the designs and painting it. The only part that i had a problem with was making the coil pot. The top and bottom wouldn't match in size so it was hard to make them symmetrical. But i love how this all turned out and i would definitely love to do a project like this again!

I absolutely love this piece of sgraffito! it's amazing!!!! i would love to attempt to do this (i'll fail in the process though haha).