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