Week Three Reflection

My Third and final week on my ceramics project went just as well as my previous two. I engaged in helping Patrice handle her share day group, preparing the slabs for the kids to work with and then firing and glazing them because they were unable to come back and complete them.
This week I continued on with creating my final products trimming and glazing the bowls, cups and plates and making handles for the plates. It was challenging when I had to make the handles, as this is something I am not good at so I had to go through a few handles until I was satisfied with what I had done. In addition this week I had to decided upon whether I was going to do all the plates one color and then all the bowls another color and all the cups one color, or whether to do choose four colors and use one from each set to form there own set with another pot. I decided that I would go for the second option so that I could therefore has a set of a bowl, plate and cup for each member of my family. I was happy with my decision to do this and the outcome looks great.
This week also I was able to see a professional lamp maker go to work in our ceramics studio and see up front how someone can make something so tall and wide on the wheel. This fascinated me and it grew me to become even fonder of ceramics.
This being my last week I am sad that this is coming to a close but am happy that everything went so smoothly and that I was able to pick up new skills and improve on the things I already knew. Seeing all my work being put together and finally seeing the final outcome was good and I was relieved with how everything came out.

Day Fifteen

Today I began once again at 11:00 AM and this time my cups had completed being brisk fired and were now ready to be glazed. In addition I had extra pots that I had done in preparation for getting to getting to my final products so I had a lot of glazing to get done. I began by waxing the bottoms off all of them. Then I got the glazes and began by glazing the four I and using for the set, continuing to use the same glaze I used for the plates and bowls. Then with the remaining pots I had I experimented with the different glazing using two colors to make interesting colors. I look forward to seeing how these turn out.
After this I ran the pug mill for my final time and then cleaned the surfaces that I had been working on. Now I have all of my pots glazed and ready to go through a final firing where they will come out as my finished products. I am extremely anxious to see how they are going to come out, and fingers crossed they look good.

Day fourteen

Today I came to the ceramics room at 11:00AM where my plates were on the table after being through the brisk firing and I was happy with how they have turned out. So then I lay them out and began putting the wax on the bottoms to prevent the glaze getting on them. After the wax had dried I brought out the glazes, stirred them and grabbed the tongues to clasp on to the plates as I put them in the glazes. Again I used the colors I previously used on the bowls which were Galaxy blue which was both black and floating blue, raspberry, kidder blue and brown.
After glazing my plates I helped out a little bit with preparing for the art show that is tomorrow night. Pictures from photography, paintings from art and pots from ceramics will be on display for everyone to see and so I helped with putting the pictures up on the wall. Because I had to wait for my cups to be brisk fired I could not continue with more glazing but will be able to complete this last set tomorrow and then look forward to the final outcome as they come out of the second firing.

Day Thirteen

Today I started at 9:00 AM and began by running the pug mill. I ran this quite a few times so that Patrice had enough clay to last going in to the summer. Then to end with I left some really dry clay and really wet clay in there mixed over night so that it could be reproduced tomorrow. After this I had to decide on the colors I wanted to glaze my bowls. I decided that I wanted to do different color bowls and then match the colors to the cups and plates. My theory behind this was so that say my Mum could have raspberry, Dad galaxy blue, Brother kidder blue and myself brown. But before I could glaze them I had to put wax on the bottom. this is so that the glaze doesn't get on there and therefore causing the glaze to run when being fired. So once I had put the wax on all the bowls and let them dry for a little bit I chose my colors and stirred the bucket and then dipped the bowls in the bucket. My first bowl needed two colors to form a galaxy lookin blue, which was black first and then floating blue and the others were just one colors. I hope that these colors turn out nice and am anxious to see how it goes.

Day Twelve

I began my day at 11:00AM being inspired by the visitor once again. He continued to work on the piece he did yesterday and created a new piece, which if he was staying around would place on top of the first one making one big piece. It amazing how he works on the wheel and gave good advice on ceramics and how to go about it. After this I began trimming my cups some more. Instead of trimming the bottom I also did the inside. I had to do this because they were feeling rather heavy an so trimming the inside will give the cup better shapes and enable them to hold more while making them lighter at the same time. All my cups vary but I am pleased with how they have turned out and my handles aren't as bad as i thought they were. Then once all the cups were trimmed I used a sponge to smooth it out. Today wasn't as hectic as yesterday but I am relieved I have all my wet work complete and now all that is needed is for my plates and cups to go through the brisk firing and then glaze them. I ended my day at 2:00 PM and I feel that this week is starting off as a good week and I look forward to the further outcomes of my work.

Day Eleven

Today was a long day. I began my morning at 7.50 AM just as Patrice had asked in order to prepare for the kids coming for share day. We had to prepare slabs for them so that they could cut out clay from the templates and create a cup that way. Also while this was going on we had a visitor who was a former student here and is now a man of his own business making lamps. He showed us his skills with ceramics and it was amazing.
After this busy morning I continued on to running the pug mill. Once this job was done I started to work on my cups. They had become too dry to put a handle on straight away so I had to put damp tissue in the area that I wanted the handle to go. Then I was able to make the handles, this being something I am not great at, then while they sat to dry I trimmed the cups. Once both aspects were complete I used a needle tool to mark the spot in which i wanted both ends to go and then placed slip on these two places. Placing the ends carefully in to position on the cup I had my handles on. To finish it up I got a sponge and smoothed the area out.
Today I feel I got a lot done with my cups ending at 2:00 PM and will begin to continue on with them tomorrow and possibly glaze my previous work.

Week Two Reflection

My second week on my ceramics project followed on nicely from the first week. Learning new skills and techniques and continuing to help Patrice out whenever I could. Where as last week was centered a round picking up the arts of throwing and starting out with bowls, I was now working on plates.

I new that to begin with this week wasn’t going to be easy with learning a new skill and certainly I knew it would take time to fully grasp it. Making plates is different to making bowls or cups or vases because you need a bat that goes on top of the wheel, thus making it easier for you to pick the plate up, and then having to center it and pull up and down forming a flat base for the plate. It’s not easy and becomes difficult when having to make it centered. However each time I made a plate it seemed to improve, whether it be how centered it was or how the walls and rim of the plate looked.

As with the previous week, this week I continued to run the pug mill producing the slabs of clay. Doing this gives me a break in between throwing my pots and also takes a load off Patrice’s back so that she doesn’t have to do it. This week has been enjoyable, I think that making plates is my favorite now and I hope to make more in the future because I know there is still much room for improvement.

Towards the end of this week I finished throwing plates and moved on to cups. I began by practicing different styles with the different shapes available to help me decide how I want to go about making my four cups. I feel that I got a lot done this week and am excited to begin my cups and get the wet products fired and ready to be glazed next week.