May 2010 - School Is Out!

School is out! TMCC Silver College Senior Classes finished up last Thursday.... UNR Classes finished up the prior Thursday with just barely surviving the finals. One week reprieve... then start my online Web-based class... Ouch...Are Grannies to old for this school thing...!

Wanted to share some of my latest pottery....
Pottery Serving Dish - TMCC December 2009





UNR Project I - Project I Decorated

UNR Ceramics is more into Art... or so they say.... This project was to make a plaster mold, pour five items from the mold and decorate the items with different decorative medians. I choose a vase shaped as a woman's torso so that the vases could represent different aspects of womanhood.

Steps to the finished Vases... listed with about 20 more steps...!

1. From clay mold the shape the vase solid.


2. Burnish the vase until totally some - Mark vase at halfway


3. Build up around the Vase to the halfway mark with trash clay


4. Smooth rectangle shape and put into a large vice type form


5. Pour mixed plaster up to the prior marked line...halfway up - dry


6. Take Boards off - Turn over - Coat poured mold with Murphy Oil Soap


7. Put form around - Pour Plaster on top of half just make - dry 2 or 3 days


8. To cast: Pour Casting Slip into the Mold until Full


9. Leave until Walls of Item are Desired Thickness


10. Pour out Remain Liquid.

The rest of the finishing process is just like you would any other Ceramics project: Dry until leather hard, apply design, Bisque fire, Glaze, High Fire. These Vases were a challenge for me as I have never worked with Low Fire glazes. They are difficult to work with but I was pleased with the finished items.

Decoration methods used were:

• Purple Vase: purple under-glaze, carved design and mixed lavender low fire glaze White Carved Vine Vase: White glaze with Coral in Vine Carvings - also like this one


• Coral Slip Vase: Slip applied with a brushed look - Coral low fire glaze - my favorite


• White Flower Vase: Flowers stamped from my homemade stamp - Gold under-glaze


• Black Sgraffito Vase: Carved with Black low fire glaze - Dad's favorite

This is more information than you wanted, but it was a neat learning process for me requiring an immense amount of time and energy.

UNR Project II - Sgraffito Teapot Project

This project was to find an artist from a list of artist the teacher gave to us, study his work and design a piece from something that inspired you for the artist. David Regan was the artist I chose. His work is very creative and he started out throwing teapots and then move on to hand building intricate little pieces and designing them with sgraffito.This is one of his pieces that I like very much - it reminded of those days before dishwashers.



On the right is what I came up with. I designed three teapots using sgraffito design. It was also a learning project but fun...! The teapot on the right has a little bear on the lid and was designed after Indian art. The teapot's design in the in the middle was taken from a sweater that our chorister was wearing in sacrament meeting. I used brown under glaze and clear low fire glaze on the teapots.

UNR Project III - Project of Own Idea Design

The Final project consisted of three large tubular vases. The middle vase has a pine cone cut design and line carvings with a hand built flower with jagged edges. The body of the vase was stained with iron oxide and the flower has high fire glaze on it.The other two vases are raku fired. The one on the left has a design pressed into it with a rough ball that grows on trees and extended flower design. The front of the vase is designed with an ripped overlap and large indention. Copper glaze was used with black not glazed areas. The vase on the right, my favorite and favorite of teacher and fellow student, has a black copper glaze on it with the vine left with no glaze so it will be black. The vine was achieved by rolling, molding and slip applying piece by piece. The front has a double vested look with indented buttons.


All in all, I believe my semester was a success... A new teacher always gives cause for concern but she must have liked something as I earned an "A" in the course.