The Life of a Ceramic Owl!

Ceramics has been my life lately. Yes, I have spent so many hours in the ceramics studio, I even dream that I am still there. Ok, I think that only happened when I stayed there till 3:00 am and only got three hours of sleep...but still! It really does haunt me. It has been paying off though I guess. I have made quite a bit of really neat things. But enough of my yakking! I am sorry the pictures are sideways....you would not believe the effort I exerted to try and rotate them (grrrrr picasa web albums) But on with the pictures!!!!!

Okay I know I said I would stop talking but here is the assignment: To make two zoomorphic or anamorphic vessels. One from a existing ancient vessel and a personal one of your own imagination.

Here is the little guy I picked. He is made from bronze and is 12 inches tall. I made mine to scale.



First step. Getting the basic form.



This is where you imagine the picture I didn't take where there is just the tail attached. Then there would be some progressive shots of him when the feet and eyes are attached and the little mohawk and his ears. Use your imagination people!!!!

After 12 hours of carving.

Aaaaaah! His head fell off! Ha ha! Not really. I cut it off (that sounds cruel!) and I made his head into the lid like the original one.

After the terra sigillata (in one very simplified word it would mean: paint [but it gets fired on and its different then a glaze] ) and copper oxide was applied. It doesn't look that different in the picture, but it really looked quite a bit different.

Yay! Its done! The head got stuck on during fireing, but pulled it off (again with the cruelty!!!).

I had to make these pictures extra big because I love how the different colors are reflected in it!!!!

The lovely inside! Which I also put terra sigillata on.



My lizzard jar turned brown...I kind of liked the grey better. Ah well. I still like it though :)



And here are some bowls I threw on the wheel, and then I painted them. I will soon glaze them as well.

Today's Events

     So today we had a critique of our ceramic zoomorphic vessels. Everyone liked mine....yaaaay! They ought to, I spent a whole ton of time on them! 12 hours were spent just carving my owl vessel...and yes that was all in one day(but I guess 4:00 am is technically the next day). Yes, very crazy :P But anyway we got to all walk down to the fireing shed where we started loading the sawdust fireing, which we were fireing our zoomorphic vessels in.                                                                                           

The inside of the barrel. Here you can see a few of the pieces, there are more between the layers of sawdust.





The loading of the sawdust fireing.





One of my zoomorphic vessels! Which is still greenware :(



Midterms......AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHG!

     Yes, it's that time again for us college students :p Midterms. This morning I nearly had a panic attack because they loaded the kilns yesterday, and they fired it early this morning. I saw on the calander that it said today was the firing day, so I was thinking that if I got my pieces done today my stuff could go in....wrong! And my ceramics midterm is on Monday! Therefore I would have been done for, because today was the first day I had glazed anything... leaving me nothing finished for my midterms!!! Yes, I was a little worked up! Okay, I was very worked up! Thank goodness that the midterm is really on Wednesday, leaving me time to have my other stuff fired. Hallelujah I am saved! I was ready to start a really big bonfire to try and pit fire it! But alas, pit fireing is for low fire glazes....mine were high fire. So, I really hope that I make it through this next week....three midterms!!!! AAAAAHK!

Oh, and my friend took me out for a very delicous birthday supper, THANK YOU KAILA!!!

And remember:

So eat some desserts instead of being stressed! Ha ha! I just found this while looking for a picture to use for this post :) Have a great weekend everyone!

More Pictures!

Here are a few pots that I made yesterday! I think I am getting the hang of it a bit more :)

My Wild Adventures of the Untamed Clay

     Well I survived my first midterm of the year..... I really hope I did well. But since the midterm was in the morning, after it was over I decided to go throw away my stress. Ha ha! My mom came up with that! I thought it was pretty funny :) Anyway after having a pretty bad time of it, I finally decided to just relax and enjoy it. I think the problem was that I was watching some throwing demos on YouTube and they make it look so darn easy!!!! And trust me it isn't all that easy, at least not without a ton of practice :p They just slap a ball of clay on the wheel and whoosh! They just pull it up into a fantastically perfect vase! So, after many failed attempts I decided to just save the bowls if they weren't turned into a collapsed heap of clay.

     The first one was pretty bad (I may just scrap it) it was all lopsided and I sat there for a while scowling at it, as if that would somehow shape up my rebellious bowl into something beautiful.....it didn't work. So I gave it another try, this bowl turned out quite lovely! So I tried to make a second one for a set of two. Well, it was going quite well and it was about the same shape and size as the first. Then I decided to use my wire to loose it from the wheel.... Ahhhhhgh! You see, when I started the wheel, one of the handles on my wire cutter got caught on the wheel and flew up and landed on my bowl cutting a nice big chunk out of the side. I decided to also move past this incidence and make another bowl. This one was amazing!!! Oh wow! I was so happy with it I figured that I could leave at that point ( I couldn't bring my self to just quit without having something amazing to show for). You can see the pictures below :) Yay!

Oh, and here is my latest roller stamp. Hooray for buttons!!

Roller Stamps!!!

I think that roller stamps are pretty amazing, you just roll one across some clay and you have a lovely texture/pattern!! Here are a few that I made....

This first one I used a bamboo paint brush holder, the end of a pen with the tip retracted, the handle of a fork and the lid on a bamboo box.

This next one I used various tools to carve and shape it, and I also used the end of a bamboo brush (I seem to have a lot of bamboo art supplies!) 

And there below are a few initial stamps I made!

And on Monday I get to start throwing!!!! Yaaaaaaaay! I have been waiting my whole life for this!! (Well actually I did sneak in to do some throwing before. But now we are officially throwing...the whole class....not just me being the rebel...hee hee!)

Back in School Again :)

Things are going pretty well up to this point, I am not behind on any homework yet. The class I am most excited about would have to be ceramics!! I am by far the most interested in sculpting and making three dimensional works. This semester I have ceramics and next semester I have sculpture. I am also very excited about a new assignment in my design class in which I get to take pictures! Of course there are guidelines that I have to fullfill while taking the said pictures, but that is to be expected. In fact I often find that guidelines force me to be more creative in order to find a way around the limitaions to still carry out what I would like to do.

From Blogger Pictures

Here is a ceramic cup that I made the other day :) And I have just realized that it is out of focus, grrrr! Well I did take it with my phone.

 I am going to have to get back into my blogging habits, as it has been kind of dead on here lately. For that I am very sorry. But I would like to thank my wonderfull followers for sticking around! It is because of you eight that I am still here blogging. When I had none or very few followers it very many times seemed like I was just talking to myself (which did not motivate me to blog at all).

So I hope you all have a wondefull weekend and I hope to blog again soon!