Ceramic Masters Blog
Week 2
This week I was tasked to create 3 identical pinch pots, coil one straight form, and to coil 2 ‘upside down’ closed forms and connect them to make one piece.
I started making 3 pinch pots by weighing out 3 balls of clay and manoeuvre them around my palm and thumb to start the ‘pinch’ process. After continuing this repetitive motion, I found it challenging to pinch the clay enough to thin out the edges. This resulted in shallower and narrower pots.
I felt more confident when starting on the coiled forms as I already have lots of practise making sculptures using this method. When making the straight coiled form I tried to focus on my control of the clay over the height to get used to using coils again. For the two part coil form I decided to try a more complicated form and settled on a heart. While making this I did realise that one half of the form was left to dry too much which resulted in it being harder to combine the two halves. This is definitely an area I will need to work on in the future – moisture management.
Week 1
To start my Masters Degree in Ceramics I made 15 12×12 tiles, the focus for this project was to explore manmade and natural surface textures on each tile.
For the manmade textures I used items such as; chains, serrated kidneys, metal wheels and the soles of my shoes. When exploring more natural textures I made use of a heat gun to crack the surface as it dried quicker than the underside of the tile. I found that going outside and observing different textures within nature was useful and even using them to get imprints onto the clay.
