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.