7 Kohl's Blog

Pinch pot

 

 

 

to use at home

idiom

Coil bowl

Soap dish

Pinch pot

vase

To start with my first ever pot that i brought home was my pinch pot which i had originally thought was a master piece. Slowly as my skill in making pots increased i realized that my pinch but was way to small, thick, and just overall a bad glazing job. Compared to my mug my pottery skills have gotten way better since the begging of the year. Such as making pots and mugs in different ways and being able to make other things that aren’t pots or cups. My soap dish was the first time i used slab building and it didn’t turn out to bad but as i progressed and practiced more i got better and i was able to make cylindrical and squared shapes. My first and only coil bowl was probably one of my better pots because it had an even thickness all through out but it was slightly to thick.

If i could completely redo a project it probably would be my vase because i didn’t do it cause i had to work on other things. Also because I loved the look and outcome of all the vases that were made. And i wanted to glaze something that big because i wanted to use a splatter effect.

Recently for my mug i used a gray glaze and only that one glaze because i wanted to go for a more of a modern look. I also chose grey because for my embellishment i used a serrated edged scrapper and made a lined decoration on the bottom of my mug. And i thought the muteness of the gray glaze looked the best with the lined decoration.

For my slab letter that is being fired right now i want to use the gray glaze and for the first time a second color which i want to use a sky blue for. I have chosen to use these color because the luminescence of the sky blue contrasts the mute color of the gray nicely. With using the sky blue and gray i can use the sky blue to make certain parts of my project to stand out like if there were little details that a blind eye wouldn’t really recognize i could use the blue to make it pop out towards the spectator.

   When making my slab for my mug it was first off difficult to try to find a spot on the table that didn't have chunks of dry clay on it. Then it was hard to make a slab that wasn't to dry to be able to bend enough to create the cylindrical shape with out cracking. So to overcome the excessive cracking of the clay i used a small spray bottle to smooth out the cracks and make the clay more malleable to be able to bend it to the right shape.

   My first mug turned out pretty good except for the fact that it had a chip in it right by the top of the handle which caused the handle to detach. So i had to recycle it. My second mug turned out great in my opinion it had a perfect sized handle the was structural but also decorative and it had a design at the bottom inch, inch and a half to add some more decoration. But with my third pot i was able to make the body of it pretty simply but we ran out of time in class and i forgot to bag it up so the next day it was dried out therefor the handle couldn't bond to the body of the mug.

Artists develop and refine their art making techniques: I plan on building my Greek vase using the potters wheel. To use the wheel though it is very messy and it takes a lot longer to set up and clean up. But once you center the clay and get the hang of shaping the clay you can create pots a lot faster and a lot smoother. And to get better I plan on using the wheel more when i can.To help be able to center the clay better i will spend a little more time in the beginning of working on the wheel.

Artists organize and develop artistic ideas:When i was going through the thought process of making/drawing my sketches at first i wasn’t sure on what i wanted to do but after looking at some old Greek vases/pots i realized i didn’t want to create an ordinary Greek vase. After a little bit of thinking about styles that i like for a pot or vase i came upon a idea, to make a large wine glass like cup which would have a thick base. But one challenge that i realized after i created the top half of my pot was that i couldn’t create the base with white stoneware as i used for the top half.

The first Greek Vessel I came upon was a Terracotta Neck-Amphora technically speaking it was a jar. It had belonged to the Archaic times of Greece, made in 520 B.C., and it was about 12 3/4 in. tall. It describes a scene of Herkales confronting two Amazonian armed foot soldiers.

The second clay vase i came upon that i thought to be interesting was a terracotta stemless kylix / drinking cup. it was made roughly between 340 and 320 b.c. and it belonged to the classical time frame. The kylix  describes a seated nude youth holding a phiale with a wreath.

Greek pottery is relevant to present day because the pottery is embellished with Greek story’s and folk tales. Some pots and clay figures show the culture and ways the Greeks lived. But also the creations show that the Greeks were pretty advanced and new how to create masterpieces out of some dirt which we still use today.

Artist Collaborate:

• I have received some feedback that I should add more detail to my piece of cake. This is great advice because I was thinking about adding more detail but I wasn’t sure if I should or shouldn’t and this advice was enough to convince me to add more details like embellishments.
• At my table i normally look to Elle for help because she has great advice and wont lie to me if my project is bad. She also can give me some useful tips and also can help me create more ideas

Artist observe:

• When i saw that piece of art called “Censored” by Patti Warashuna it reminded me of a saying I’d heard “No see, no hear, no speak evil”. But the art work it’s self is very simplistic with the few colors used like black, white, orange, green, and yellow. It is interesting how the creator used “tape” to cover the ears, mouth, and eyes. She also made each head different like each one had a different color and different sized head.

My favorite project was my use at home project. Everything about it was abstract at first i was screwing around with some clay and it created a canyon looking landscape. So i started to embellish it to make it look more like a realistic landscape, and i add bits of clay for boulders and cliffs. And once it was bisque fired i glazed it with 3 colors. First i used a light tan color for a base color then i used coal black and going with the abstract flow i created a splatter effect, then i used a lighter blue and splattered that on.

Fig 2-20 page 37

This clay structure has an ancient look to it. The color of this vase looks like it was in a very intense fire and then buried in dirt for century’s to give it a rustic look. It is also pretty symmetrical but it is a little different on each side because of the pattern. Speaking of the pattern, the pattern created on this vase is very eye drawing its a very smooth and curvy it also has flowers and berries at the end of each line which are vines. The form of the vase is very smooth and reminds me of a vase you would see in a museum it is very large with curvy handles and an engraved lip. This vase looks very intricate and that the artist spent a lot of time creating this piece of art work. All in all this art piece shows great skill and is an inspiring piece for me.

Develop Craft:To create my soap dish i had used stiff slab formation. So i had to go through various steps to create my soap dish. First i had to throw some clay at the back table then i had to put the thrown clay onto a large pleather and bring it to the slab roller. After i rolled out my clay into a slab i used the templates to cut out the walls and base of my soap dish, but once i was done with that i had to  use some news papers and a ware board to dry out the clay so it would be leather hard the next day. Making the clay leather hard made it easier to form the soap dish. With some of the scrap clay i made little stilts at the bottom of the soap dish.

Reflect: Once a stiff slab construction is finished it shows great craftsmanship with the 90 degree angles and the smooth exterior. The 90 degree angles make the pot(a bowl or dish) look crisp and clean and it makes the bowl look finished. The smoothness makes the pot look like there was a lot of time and preciseness put into it. And when someone looks at a pot that is smooth with precise angles they just think of someone spending a lot of time on their pot which is a great look on a creator.

EXPRESS: So i was going through my thinking process which is screwing around with a block of clay and i created a piece of clay that looked like a canyon. So i carved my name into the side and turned the canyon into a phone holder. I went to ask Ms.A if it was “ok” to use it as my project and she suggested that i hallow it out so i used a loop tool and hollowed it out.

OBSERVE:While reading my peers blog post i learned i need to be a little more specific in my vocab use. I had also learned that my blogs weren’t as bad as i expected. But there were some blogs that had stood out to me. In one of my classmates blogs I saw they had created a very different bowl and its was really cool because it wasn’t like any one else’s i had seen. And when i got my reports back it was helpful because the constructive criticism pointed out some key key mistakes like spelling and capitalizing.