Advanced Pottery - Creating a Vase

I requested another class during the add and drop period at the senior center. I was so surprised when I found out that I made it! Usually advanced pottery fills up very fast and is hard to get. This particular class is right after my ceramic mold preparation class in the same room, so I was very happy to see that I made the cut.

The teacher started me off with a vase that she wants me to make with the hand build technique using coils. I looked at the picture and I thought to myself, "I don't think that I am this advanced." But I did not say that out loud. I pretended that the assignment was suitable for someone with my talents and skills. 🤣

She gave me some clay to work with, and I cut some off of the block and took it to the slab roller. I rolled out two slabs of clay and cut out some narrow strips so that I could start to hand roll them into coils.

She came over to my table after I got started and asked me to make the coils larger and she showed me an approximate size.

I went back to work, making coils and placing them on top of each other with some slip until they starting forming a bowl. After I had about four coils in place, she told me to use a kidney tool and start to smooth out the coils into a solid piece.

I would have taken more pictures, but my hands were covered in wet clay and it was getting all over my cell phone.

I worked on that for awhile until it was lunch time. I ran and got a salad to go because I left my Spanish workbook at home and I still have my intermediate Spanish class this afternoon.

I am thoroughly enjoying my courses this quarter. I found out that there is a lady in the pottery class who also crochets. I saw some of her work and I was astonished. She crochets pictures of people and movie stars, etc. The pictures look so realistic that I thought they were screen prints or something. It almost looked like embroidery! She told me that she purchased the patterns from some guy who generated the images and patterns using a computer program. I plan to look into that because the quality was amazing.

Anyway, I've got to eat, grab my book and some supplies so that I can get to my Spanish class. Hasta Manana!