Last night in my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class, we celebrated the end of another session with a fun “white elephant” trading, exchanging & stealing game! Category was?… COOKIE JARS… many of them already filled with cookies!!! Nicely done team!

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Ruth for taking home the First Place win!!! And kudos to everyone else who did such an amazing job this session! Turns out Season Six of THE GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN was one of my favorites… with a great group of people all working hard, playing hard… and keeping it light, humorous & inclusive for everyone!

I know I had an amazing time this session… although I kept telling them all that they weren’t there to really learn anything. They were just there TO ENTERTAIN ME!!!” …and they did weekly!!! I’m already looking forward to next Winter when we get to do this all over again… with new peeps & new challenges!!! Thanks again everyone… it was another great class to teach!

And what fun would a Throwdown “competition” class be
without having RIBBONS FOR EVERYONE?!!!

So I made a few to hand out…

The final “Big Build” for this year’s GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN was a functioning tabletop water fountain. My students received this challenge early on in the session so they had several weeks to get them all put together. They each also received a mechanical pump… and a single “word” to inform & inspire the designs for their fountain. All in all, they did an AMAZING job… some with a bit of a sputtering trickle, or an overflowing splatter of water… but I think that’s more the pumps fault than their fountains! It was an AMAZING finale for our Throwdown’ers!!!

RUTH : “labyrinth”

KATIE : “art deco”

ELLEN: “groovy”

EMILY : “zen”

TAYLOR : “floral”

SHANNON : “puzzle”

After an hour of sculpting time, my THROWDOWN students had finished their first cereal mascot sculptures. Only to find out that they weren’t done yet… and that they had to do a second one in just 45 minutes!!! They could have traded mascots… but instead, all decided to go with a new cast of cereal characters!!! It was so much fun watching them make these amazing sculptures… watching the parts & pieces come together in the final minutes!!!

This week in my GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, I challenged them all with a sculpture challenge! Most of them had never done a three-dimensional sculpture before. And what better way to celebrate NATIONAL CEREAL DAY than by sculpting some of the famous cereal mascots!!! They may have been new to sculptures… but “They’re Grrr..rreat!!!

Sadly, not all of the woven projects survived the THROWDOWN night…
as this one ended up in the swampy bucket of reclaimed clay!

By the end of Thursday night’s class, my LILLSTREET THROWDOWNers had some amazing woven bowls & plates. Some of them were still a bit to wet to pop off of their forms, and some tried too soon… but we all loved the results & they had a great time trying a new process. I think they felt they could do it… especially when I told them that my Summer Campers have done it too. And if the kids can do it… these competitive adults can do it too!!! And they gladly accepted the challenge!!!

This week in our GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, they did a little “Time Warp” again… and then started working with their warp & weft. Yes.. it was Weaving Night!!! They were challenged to make a plate, bowl, vase or whatever form they wanted to… but the “majority” of it had to be woven clay. Oddly, I “assumed” this would be a coil rolling challenge… but almost everyone went with sliced slab ribbons?! Most of them had never done weaving before… so it was a fun challenge to watch as they had to do a lot of problem-solving along the way!

Okay, so I’ve been a little busy lately… and somehow missed posting about our LILLSTREET THROWDOWN challenge from last week. They were tasked with building a creamer & sugar set. They could wheelthrow or handbuild it… but a half-hour in, they found out that they needed to incorporate BOTH techniques into their project somehow! And then later, with just a half hour left, all of them racing to finish…. they also found out they needed to make a tray to hold it all together!!! They were all surprised to find out that they could make all of this in just 2-1/2 hours… when normally it would take them days or even weeks!!!