Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Renewal




Here in California over the last several weeks, the trees and flowers have awakened from their slumber and have burst forth with new growth. It's an exciting time to be alive and smell the fragrant air. I love spring and all that it represents. I'm also going to make an attempt to awaken this poor, neglected and hungry blog and feed it some interesting pottery morsels! Last session, I demonstrated some new and exciting techniques. I showed my students how to make these sweet little bud vases made from slab formed bowl shapes. Had great fun with texture on these little gems! (that's our lorikeet Missy posing with one of my bud vases) Also made some interesting wheel thrown bowls that I cut and altered. After watching a Mitch Lyon's video on inlaying colored clay, I demonstrated my version of this technique. It was exciting and fun, but realize I need to make sure the clay is kept very damp and dried slowly otherwise it can separate during the firing, which happened to several of my vases. Patience, patience is required here! Here are some of my latest finished class projects.