mmm candy canes and egg nog

Merry Christmas everyone!! Its been really really cold so i havent been throwing except these last couple days! But anyways heres what ive been up to!

These are some orby/reverse dimple cups that i have been wanting to try out. These are the first ones that i have made and i really want to make more. They are alot of fun because there's so many possibilities for different styles and textures but i can still keep the same basic shape and idea. I plan on working with these alot more in January and hopefully i can come up with some cool ideas! On these cups there are three dimples (thumb, index, and ring finger). I was thinking about making these cups both left and right handed but i think instead i'm just going to make all the cups a size where your hand can fit into the dimples on both sides. If that description didnt make sense, it will once you see the cups in person! Happy Holidays and i hope everyone is having a great break!

The key to throwing quickly is to understand what the clay can and cannot do. You'll understand what i mean once you watch this video. This potter throws a large bowl shape in four-five raises (not counting any coning and counting his rib raises).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzFBpy-LsQY&feature=related

slow week

This week i spent alot of time glazing and loading kilns and not so much time on actually making stuff. i was able to finnish my lidded jar and i started another vase/jar (havent decided yet) today. Here's the jar that i finished this week.

The texture is from a scoring tool that amy got me but ive found myself more interested in the texture it creates rather than its intended use. I like it because it creates more of an organic texture as apposed to the metal rip scrapes that are evenly spread out. I wish the lid on this jar was bigger but i like that it follows the form of the body. I'm not sure if i like the handle but after trying 3 or 4 others i think that this one is the best looking one so far.

Planters?

I threw two forms this week with the idea of a planter in mind. I dont think that I'm going to actually make them into planters but i like practicing throwing larger and working with the techniques.

I like the shape on this one but i wish it was a little thicker because it makes me worry about it breaking. The bottom 1/4 looks a little sketch but i left alot of clay so that i could remove it from the wheel without having to worry about warping the planter. Since i left alot of clay i can just trim it all off next week and hopefully it will look good! I dont like depending on trimming to complete the shape on my pots but with things this big it just seems necessary. Hopefully this year i will be able to  throw and remove pots this big off of the wheel in one day instead of having to wait for them to dry.

This one may seem alot thicker than the other planter but i left the rim alot thicker than the other pot, hoping that it will help with the structure. When i trim this the form of the body will continue,(basically all of that clay at the bottom will be gone). When i trim these i will post more pictures!

I also threw some more cups and a lidded jar this week but i forgot to take pictures whoops!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcHv4I9_oDo&feature=related
A very beautiful form that i really want to try. I'm not sure what it is but if i was going to make something like that i would probably throw it the same...but cut a lid after it is leather hard...if that makes any sense.

More comfy cups!

This week I threw five cups. Three of them at school and the other two at my house. I've had alot of feedback on my previous "comfy cups" and i decided to make some cups that were based off of the feedback. People have commented that the dimples in my cups were too big/ they only fit my hand, and they have said that they don't work for left handed people. With these new cups i have tried to address these problems with my new cups.

I might make some cups with the dimple pattern all the way around the cups but i kind of like how these look. After i do the pattern it leaves the rim off center so when i center it back up the cups looks more organic which looks alot better than the other cups i have made.

Jar/dish idea?

I've been messing around with different ideas and i decided to make a jar/dish sort of piece. I threw 3 cylinders and then made one of them into my idea. Heres the one that i have finnished.

Mainly what i wanted to do was work out a way for the handle/lid/side handles to connect and make sense with the shape of the body. Atleast for this piece i'm not satisfied and i have alot to change and work out. I like my idea but i think that i need to make the lid not look so much bigger than the body and this either means making the lid sit on the inside of the body or have a lid that fits right into the lip of the body, making it more or less seem like the body just continues into the lid, (which would be cool). For this piece i wanted to make the lid handle match the side handles but i think it might be better to just have a knob or a different style. Anyways the things that i want to work on for the piece is the lid and the handle on the lid. I'll keep posting the changes i make so you can see the progession of my thought process.

Heres a fun a video :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fbo7dXO4go
This potter trims his cups when they are completely bone dry and with no clay holding them down. Enjoy!

epic week.

this week has really been testing my throwing ability. Last friday I threw about 45 cups in about 2 hours and just today i threw somewhere between 38-48 cups at empty bowls. (given that i was throwing from 11am-4pm). Throwing this much is teaching me that its not enough to just say "oh guess how much i threw today", because im pretty sure anyone could whip out a crappy pot in a few seconds. The trick is to make something your proud of. Just because you can throw an extreme amount of pots in a day doesnt mean that your a good potter. The trick is to appreciate almost every single pot that you can make instead of just going for quantity. Out of the 45 cups that i threw on friday i will probably end up keeping about 35, which means that i still have alot of work to do. Today i slowly started to grasp the method of throwing off the hump (with the help of matty). It deffinately helps with speed but I'm not particularily proud of alot of the bowls i made but oh well im learning! I didnt get any pictures of the bowls i threw because there wouldnt really be a point at all. But heres a picture of the cups that i threw last friday!

there are some cups that im especially proud of and excited to fire and others not so much. but anyways here they are!

I thought that i would share another video as usual so heres one of my favorites! For those of you that are interested in the method of throwing multiple pieces and putting them all together here is a fun video! This might be how some of the larger pieces were made in the last post that i made but anyways enjoy and let me know what you think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDZULaIw5Cw

Finnishing My Family Project

This week i threw the last of my pitcher set for the family project. I think the form of my pitchers is getting better but i still have alot of work to do. I've gotten some feedback already and i think my main goal for my pitchers is to make a more distinguished pitcher form but also find a handle style that fits the form of the pitcher but is also comfortable. My main focus for these pitchers was to make the handles comfortable to hold (well more comfortable than my last pitchers), which i think i succeeded. But the handles dont really fit the pitchers so in the future I'm going to need to spend more time working on the handles.

I think that the form of the pitcher on the left turned out better than the right but i still am not completely happy. I plan on making alot more in the future until i can accomplish a form that pleases the eye!

Just to save you the time of clicking to read the description. Read this and then watch the video.

"Isaac Button was the last true English country potter. In a day, he could turn a ton of clay into pots. When timed he threw a lump of clay on to the wheel, pulled it high, then cut it off with wire in 22 seconds. In an hour, he could turn out 120 pots. In a day, 1,200.
Isaac Button died in 1969 and his kiln, at Soil Hill, near Halifax, now lies cold and desolate.
In his day, speed was essential. Even before the packaging revolution, household pots and jugs made from clay were treated as disposables. They cost only a few pence. Craftsmen potters had to be quick to earn a living from poorly-paid villagers."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4qdGTFBRJ4

Let me know what you think!!

Big Bowl

At the beginning of the week i threw a large bowl and i just got to trim it today. The trimming was a little more difficult than normal but i havent had the experience of trimming a foot as large as i did.

This picture is after i trimmed the foot. I really like the curve of the form but i wish that i had a better foot. Next time i'm going to have to prepare for a larger foot when im throwing it and leave about 3/4-1 inch of clay on the bottom. This will help alot with the structure of the bowl for when its drying and it will allow me to have a better looking foot.

Besides the large bowl i didnt spend anytime this week throwing really. In the last couple months i have been looking at ceramic videos on youtube and looking at the art of different potters to get different ideas and learn more techniques. I came across a website that showed some of the pottery that is made at some sort of a festival in china. Here is what i came across.

There is no way that these pots were completely thrown in one piece; im guessing about three pieces for the body and one for the neck. These pots also could have been thrown with the coil method. When i further recearched this festival i came across these videos.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePDqNYcFWno&feature=related. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlCTWa3cos4&feature=related

It is very very interesting and i have never seen anything like it. Let me know what you think!

Also if anyone is interested in large wheel thrown pots you should definately check out this video. The song is kind of annoying but it is deffinately an interesting video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uyqEcX2Ekc&feature=related. This guy throws an amazing pot in about five minutes.

Anyways i have lots more amazing videos but i think i'll save them for a different post! Audios!

Family Project, some cups, and a bowl!

To start off this post it would probably make sense to show the cups that i decided to keep from the last post.

These are the cups that i decided to keep. There are still some cups that i like more than others but mainly what i was trying to do was to test out some new ideas and see where they led me and i think it was pretty successful.

This is the largest bowl i have thrown so far and im very proud of how it turned out. I didnt get a picture of it after i trimmed the foot but here's a picture of what it looks like right after i threw it. I like the shape of the bowl and hopefully i can make more in the future! it was actually very easily to trim which was a surprise to me. It probably only took me ten minutes.

For my family project i decided to do something with pitchers. I'm not going to say the exact details about my project because to be honest i'm not 100% sure about what im doing, but i still have plenty of time because the greenware due date is still in about a week. I've thrown five pitchers and here are the three that i finnished yesterday.

Something that ive really been trying to work on is how my handles feel. On the last batch of mugs that i threw i noticed that the handles looked nice...but they were uncomfortable to hold. What is the point of a handle if its not "comfy". These handles are alot thicker than i am used to but i think that these pitchers turned out better than i expected. For some reason the cracks appear a million times better on umpqua than on deschutes white so thats something to consider. This was a very productive week and im very happy to have a successful start on my family project!

short week!

We had a short week at school this week so i didnt have as much time as i would like but hopefully i can get these new cups trimmed before the weekend.

I threw all these cups within about 60 minutes which is pretty good because that means i threw a cup about every 6 or 7 minutes. I dont like the shape of alot of these cups so i probably wont keep alot of them but basically all i was trying to do was explore some new ideas and hopefully be a little more creative than normal so i could get some new forms and hopefully get a cup idea that i like. This year i want to work on some cups that are comfortable to hold but not necessarily with a handle. Once i trim these cups ill post which ones i kept and which ones got tossed.

Ahh late post

I havent been throwing very much recently but i have some new pieces that i got trimmed up and ready to be bisque fired!

I'm not really sure if i like this jar yet but i guess i'll have to be patient and hope that it turns out well after i glaze it. It's made out of recycled clay so i cant woodfire it but hopefully it will still turn out well. I dont know if i like how the lid fits on the pot but if i dont like it then i'll just make more until it turns out how i like it!

I'm very happy with how this bowl turned out. When i was throwing it i left the rim a little thicker than normal so that i could split it, and then i just pinched it eight times inside and out; a total of sixteen pinches. When i threw the bowl i left the base pretty thick so that i could keep the bowl even thickness after i trimmed it. I noticed that when i threw larger bowls there tends to be a small bump on the inside of the bowl just above the base. I think that this bump appears because of how much weight is pulling down on the bowl so thats why i decided to leave alot of clay on the base. I was able to trim it all off and i was able to keep the bowl even thickness so Jack-1, annoying bump/uneventhickness-0

some comfy cups

So this week i made quite a few "comfy cups". My idea right now is to make cups that are comfortable to hold without having a handle. This idea may not make sense but once you try holding these cups youll understand what i mean. Just making cups like these are not that difficult of a task but what im really trying to work on is repetition and being able to throw with percision but in a timely manner. All of these cups were thrown within a 90 minute period.

If you take a close look at the cups below you will see an indented band just below the lip of these cups and also there is an indent just before the foot. The indented band is meant for your thumb and pointer finger and the dent above the foot is meant for your ring finger. These additions to the cups make them comfortable to hold and hopefully they will remain comfy even after they are fired...but i suppose time will tell.



First post!

We've only been in school for two weeks and I'm already getting alot of work done! I was not able to go to the art retreat because i had to work :( but oh well. I'm still very excited for this year and I hope to learn alot from this class! 

I just added the lid to this pot today. I havent even trimmed it yet but i wanted to just show what i am working on. Im not sure if i like the shape of the pot but the pot is very light for its size and it has even thickness through out the pot. This year something i want to work on is making my pieces evenly thrown, and not necessarily light, but have a weight that fits the piece. Basically i dont want thick uneven pots anymore. 

I'm not sure if you can tell by this picture, but this pot is very large for what im used to throwing. I actually think it is the largest pot that i have ever thrown. Again this pot is very light for its size and im excited for how its going to look after i glaze it. The body of this pot may not seem to fit how small the lip is but i will probably end up trimming the body a little when i trim the foot next week so that the piece is more porportional.

Anyways this is what i have been up to this week! I have lots of work from the summer but i will probably just include those in a different post. Let me know what you think about these pots!

Main Blog!

http://lakeridgeap3d1011.blogspot.com/