Sassy orange

Today I brought home mugs to paint with borrowed paint from Ms. Lutter. I spread out paper towels all over the kitchen table and began making a huge mess. The blue mug will be cumulus clouds on the top and sassy orange on the bottom, I can't wait to see it! It'll be a surprise to me because I'm not positive about the color outcomes. The other will be gold mine...and once again we'll just have to see.

Improvising

The other day in class while trying to trim my final project which was two bowls, I cut into the bottom too far and started to panic because there was no fixing it. Then I figured I'd make it look like it was on purpose by doing the same the around the entire bottom. The same thing happened with one of my mugs because it'd been drier than I should have been trimming with and my hand slipped, so I improvised and also made it look purposeful. I don't love the way the cup looks but hey, it's better than throwing the mug away! Here are the two.

Sketches

I went in yesterday and my two mugs I made before dried out a little faster than I had thought they would, oh well. I also ended up throwing another mug that looks like the one below. It's large and very circular. I plan on making a design on it with wax and then dipping it into a high fire glaze.

I also began painting another mug I made today. The parts that are seen as carved in are painted "nutmeg" which will be a orange/black shiny color while the rest of the mug will contrast it greatly and be black.

I have many mugs to still paint before my presentation but I'm not too worried because I have time and painting isn't the most time consuming part of the mug process. I've made so many more mugs than I originally said I would in my proposal, it's crazy. Granted, I don't love them all but a great majority of them are great mugs and I can see myself using them daily.

Mug/pitcher

I'm really happy with this little mug/pitcher! It's very light, has a wonderful handle, and hopefully will look nice when glazed. I'm glazing it with moss creek which should turn out matte green.

The last picture of a bowl is a random bowl someone else made just to demonstrate the way it should come out.

Where I've come

I went to the studio yesterday and had such a successful time!! I'm seeing my improvement with centers the clay because I'm getting it done so much faster and more comfortably. I've also been pulling walls easier and with more control!

I had also gone to the studio a few days ago (yeah, didn't blog about that right away now did I....) but anyway I had made one pretty tall mug but it was still too wet to trim so I kept it covered. I guess I didn't feel the need to blog immediately about it (yes, I know, I should've) because I didn't have a ground breaking moment and it just seemed like any other time I've gone. I will post immediately. Now that my projects wrapping up, you're going to hear a bunch of rushed work in my postings to get everything perfect and done.

Debriefing on sample presentation

What would you like to borrow from the sample?
I'd like to borrow the power point idea to help guide me in what I want to say. I'd also like to borrow the confidence Luke had and speak with volume and complete comfort in front of no matter the number of people.

Strength of the sample? Luke's biggest strength to his project was playing us some music on the harmonica and also the confidence that led his presentation.

What will I do differently?
I was actually planning on having some sort of power point and also demonstrating how wheel throwing works. I'm not quite sure what exactly ill do differently besides having the presentation in a smaller location.

I'm being student evaluator to two classmates on June 14th! I'm really excited to see how others will go about presenting.

Listening to the coach

In the beginning of our project semester we were told that this is OUR project and if we don't want to take people's advice on how to go about doing it, that we didn't have to. In class yesterday we read an article about Olympic athletes and how they listen to their coaches, even with their years and years of training, they still take tips. The article asked, what about you? I guess personally I can say that I don't shoot down very many ideas before considering how they may help me. It is important to listen to people trying to help you because they can give you advice for something that you were never creative enough to come up with yourself. I agree with the article and think you should never be so set on your own goals that you can't steer away from them when given helpful advice by the "coach".