Well, that’s another batch of mugs with attached handles!
Done in “plenty” of time… now off to teach class tonight!

And what’s part of tonight’s class demo?… per Jeannine’s request… pulling & attaching handles! Gonna do this all over again later tonight… but maybe just a few during class!!!

Pulled some handles & looped them over so they can set-up a bit before attaching to the mugs. It’s not like I pulled all that many… it’s just that they look kinda cool from all directions!!!

Getting ready to pull some mug handles. Starting with carrot-shaped nuggets of clay… but it looks a bit like Stonehenge has toppled over like Dominoes?!

Wanting to get in on the “recent” ceramic fruit craze… looks like Matthew misunderstood the instructions just a little. He’s got his grapefruit in a ceramic bowl… but missed-out on the concept of a ceramic grapefruit! So close!!! And yet methinks someone might need a larger bowl… or just switch to clementines???

By the end of class Thursday night, we had a table full of fresh fruits… and some “not-so-fresh” clay fruits! At times it was tough to tell the difference… so we put the clay trompe l’oeiil ones on white plates for presentation! Such an amazing night with my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN peeps… showing off their handbuilding skills with a fun & fruity challenge!!!

Once the twist was revealed, my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN students had a half hour to paint their handbuilt fruits. Their clay fruits looked great without color… but the underglazes really brought them to LIFE!!!

With just a half hour left to the challenge… I thought we needed a bit of a THROWDOWN twist. Fresh fruits need vibrant colors, right?! So the add-on twist was to paint all of their fruits to make them even more realistic with underglazes. This pear and this “bottom-of-a-bucket-palette” were both part of my demo!

This week’s class challenge for my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN was to create trompe l’oeil replicas of colorful fresh fruits. They each drew three names randomly to determine which fruits they had to tackle. Then we put their handbuilding skills to the test to recreate every bump, groove, bruise & stem!

For this week’s LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class project, I decided to kick it off with a little visual inspiration! Only Mother Nature can create this amazing collection of shapes, colors & textures! But my students were going to give it a try too!!!

To start this week’s LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, my students had a homework assignment… to carve patterns, designs or stories onto the 6-inch cubes they made the week before!

They came back with amazing pieces… but it was Clara that really ROCKED IT OUT!!! Her winning cube was based on some “bullfrog” rap song… which she actually brought in to play for us as she “presented” her finished cube!!! All five sides tell the story… with the bottom as “The End.”

Simply AMAZING!!!