What I’ve been making in pottery class
Today was an extra-exciting pottery class because I got to take home my first four projects — all glazed and ready for life in the real world!
First up, we have my coiled pot. Remember her?
I tried to go for an ombre effect with the glaze, which is hella-tricky. It’s not like at Clay Cafe where you paint the colours on with brushes — you pick up your piece with tongs and dip it into a giant bucket of strange-coloured chemicals that look nothing like the colour your piece will turn. I don’t understand the science behind it, but it’s interesting!
This is what you get when you swirl snakes of clay around in loops! Pretty neat, right?
Next up, we have my JEANS MUG! I’m loving how it turned out.
This was a slab piece, so I took a long rectangle of clay, ran it through a squishing machine until it was nice and smooth, sculpted a cylinder shape (the body of the mug) and attached it to a flat circle (the bottom of the mug). For a handle, I made a little arm and stuck that on.
This one I DID paint using brushes and bottles of glaze — the kind you use at Clay Cafe — because I wanted the jeans, arm, and shoes to be separate colours. As one does.
I think the back view is my favourite. Mug-y got BACK.
Here we have ANGRY KITTY — just as outraged as ever, but now all shiny and glazed! (Now I’m really bugging him because I keep sticking my finger in his smooth, shiny little mouth-hole. Nice kitty.)
The glaze did some cool things to this guy — he’s just dipped, not brushed — like how his eyes and whiskers look browner than the rest. Chemicals! Y’all are CRAY!
My last finished piece is this mug — another slab piece, shaped by hand. I made it at the end of class one day so it’s a quickie, since I thought I’d do a funky glaze treatment to make it more interesting.
And I did … sort of …
See how it looks all cool and distressed? Yeah … I totally planned that?
I SURE DIDN’T actually intend for it to be a simple two-colour thing, and then drop it in the bucket of chemicals and need to go fishing around for it with my hands, and then pull it out to reveal a soppy mess, and then accidentally wipe the glaze off in sections because it was too thick. Nah, I wouldn’t do that.
It’s so fun to see my first pieces all finished! Still in-progress (or ready-to-fire) are my pinch pot and like five bowls — all varying degrees of “good” and “huh that’s … interesting.”
xo
6 Comments on “What I’ve been making in pottery class”
So what do you think?
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Heather's Handmade Life 
Love it all!!! Isn’t it fun!?!??!
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THE MOST FUN EVER!!!
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Great job. I just tried glazing last night. It’s so fun.
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It’s harder than I expected — and trippy that the colours don’t look like their REAL colours in the buckets. Can’t wait to see what you make in your class, Meghan!
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They look great Heather! I am having an amazing time with these classes. So glad you are there to share it!
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Me, too! I’m glad we’ll be taking them together again in January, Holly! 🙂
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