1 Year of Ceramics

In my senior year of high school I took an AP year long english class, art 1, art 2, sci vis 1 (scientific and technical visualization), game art 2, and ceramics (both semesters). It was a really fun year and I didn't have any more credits to fill after powering through the first three years, so I learned some handy-in-my-field-skills.

Ceramics might have been my favorite just because of the freedom of the curriculum, plus I got to make whatever I wanted when I took it the second time, I just had to regularly turn pieces in. There were a lot of ups and downs in ceramics, its both where I finished some of my favorite pieces of work ever and broke projects I'd spent weeks working on before I could get them in the kiln. I wanted to show you guys the pieces I still have and use on a pretty regular basis.

This is my Bob-omb Piggy Bank. He eats all of my spare change and lives on my book shelf.  He has a hole in the back with a cork so I don't have to break him to get my money.

We had to make a poetry pot (which is exactly what it sounds like). I used one of the only semi-good pot I ever threw on the wheel and tried to shape it like the airplane engine that crashes through Donnie Darko's roof. I used the poem he presents in his English class in the directors cut.

Front

A storm is coming, Frank says
A storm that will swallow the children
And I will deliver them from the kingdom of pain
I will deliver the children back to their doorsteps
And send the monsters back to the underground
I'll send them back to a place where no-one else can see them
Except for me
Because I am Donnie Darko. 

 I etched Frank and a bar code on the back.

Back

I made it a little lid so now it looks even more like an airplane engine. I keep my candy in here. Shhhhh thats a secret!!

Top and Lid

This is one of my pride and joys from this class. Behold my R2-D2 cookie jar. I must have spent a good two months working on him alone, and he almost didn't make it. You can't tell but right at that grey joint his left arm snapped off when he was first fired. When I glazed him me and my teacher struggled to get his arm to glaze back on his body. We succeeded and its held up through 2 or 3 moves now. He got to be displayed at a senior art show. I was really proud of that as well.

I love his head, it has so much detail!

 This was another one of my successes on the potters wheel. Its a yarn pot. You place your ball of yarn inside and let the tail come out through the hole and it unwinds safely as you knit or crochet. I kept seeing these pop up on Etsy and Pinterest and I loved them!

Keeps your cats from playing with your yarn too!

This is a combo pot. You had to use two different methods of clay-working to make it. I made the bottom yellow section with slabs and I threw the top on the wheel and added it to the base when it was still wet so I could shape it like I did. This was one of my teachers favorites of mine (probably because it was the only pot I ever really made) I keep it around for decoration.

That's all for today! I hope you guys enjoyed this peek into my past work! I hope to share more of it with you in the future.

Whats one of your favorite things you've ever made? Feel free to send me a picture or just comment below describing it!

Til Next Time!