Saturday, June 2, 2012

Ceramics

A while ago we made ceramic bowls, shaping slabs of clay around a mold and then decorating them with red clay. I tried to make a beautiful bowl with pretty patterns, but it kind of ended up a blob...but I still really like it.

I feel somewhat successful about this project. It didn't break and I could eat stuff out of it if I really wanted to. The only problem was trying to make the edges even and using the red clay. The edges turned out to be crooked; higher on one end and lower on the other. If I had cut off anymore of the edges, I wouldn't have a bowl. The red clay didn't work, even though I put many, many coats on, but I like it better this way, it has a cool pattern to it. Speaking of pattern, the spiral on the inside didn't turn out how I imagined, but the clay blocks I put in look good. I did learn a lot of new sculpting techniques from this project, and working with clay is always a good time. If I could redo it I would put more effort into smoothing out the clay (I have a bunch of crumbs and stuff on my bowl after I glazed it...) and also to even out the edges more. Overall, though, I am happy with this project.