Last night in our pottery class, we were treated to new OREO’s “imported” from New Zealand… thanks to Patty who finally made it back to class after gallivanting Down Under… thankfully with sweets!!!

Looks like there’s only ONE WHEEL LEFT in my Spring Wheelthrowing Class for Beginners & Advanced Beginners at Lillstreet! Who’s going to be the lucky one to snatch it up and come play in the clay with us???

Click here to register online for that ONE LAST SPOT!!!

So after choosing their favorite tile, and getting their FREE BONUS CYLINDER…
let the surface decoration inspiration challenge begin! How to translate their first “tile” design onto a round cylinder form??? And here’s what they came up with…

Donna

Susan

Jacob

Molly

Claire

Dave

Tatiana

And then our TOP TWO winners!!!

Taylor

Ryan …who got huge kudos for tackling a carved project like this WITHOUT any sharp tools!!!

And then they thought they were done… happy to be done with that ONE TOOL.
But they weren’t. There was still one more trick up my sleeve!

After they had textured their tiles in class… I gave them their next challenge.
I told the that they needed to “choose their favorite tile” of the nine and get rid of the rest. hey could save them or squish them up… either way. And then I told them that with that SAME ONE TOOL and that one chosen tile, they had to translate their two-dimensional tile design onto a three-dimensional cylinder. And they had thirty minutes to complete the challenge!

A quick sense of panic swept across many faces, as they didn’t think they could throw a fresh cylinder and still stamp it when it was freshly-0thrown-wet in the time frame. So then I told them not to worry… as I had already pre-thrown the cylinders for them and they were already dried to the “wetter-side-of-leatherhard” which would be perfect for this challenge!

So again, they had thirty minutes to translate their flat tile design onto their cylinders!

Ummm… carving without a sharp tipped needle tool??

Yes, Ryan broke the tip off his tool and found that there was a thin wire inside
that he could cut with. A very short, very NOT sharp piece of wire!

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This week I challenged my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN students to make a set of tiles. They needed to throw a slab and cute nine perfect 4″x4″ tiles.Many of them have never made tiles before, so it was fun to see their thought process as they only had twenty minutes!

A few of them thought THAT was the challenge… but the smart ones knew there would be a twist! So I challenged them again with textures & tools…. err, well ONE TOOL!

They each chose randomly to see which of these tools was going to be theirs
Some were excited.. .some were scared. And then I gave them the challenge guidelines…

They had to decorate all nine tiles with that ONE new tool.
All of the tiles should go together as a set, but none of them could be the same!
And for this challenge they had thirty minutes! And GO!!!

And there we have them… a fun collection of textured tiles. And a LOT of fun & camaraderie along the way. They were very entertaining… some times frustrated… and very ingenious about how to use that ONE tool. Some used both ends.. some took them apart… some broke them in half… and some pulled out the small wire from inside!!!

Jacob

David

Susan

Donna

Taylor

Ryan

Claire

Molly

Tatiana

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Not to be outdone… when Michelle saw Allison stamping her plate in class,
she decided to go for it too!!! It was a great night of stamping fun for my students
in class Tuesday night! Allison & Michelle have the bug… it’s a slippery-slope
down that stamping hole. Get ready for a sweet ride!

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Tuesday night in my Wheelthrowing Class, one of my returning students needed a way to decorate her plate… and decided to tackle stamping of the rim. Wonder where she got THAT idea?!… and I wonder where this stamping-prodigy has been hiding all this time? Allison’s plate turned out BEAUTIFULLY!!! I think she might be onto something here…

Okay, so I would love to call this the POTTERY OLYMPICS…
but that only happens every four years! Ha!!!

So this week in class after we critiqued , judged & awarded the Nesting Bowls…
we moved onto the POTTERY OLYMPICS… okay, so maybe it’s not so bad…

We started by dividing the class into four teams of three. I had pre-chosen the Team Captains… by splitting up the couples… so it was Molly vs. Jacob vs. Patti vs. Jon. But then we found out that Jon was not coming to class for a medical issue… so his “Captain-manship” was handed off to Teresa who had just finished eating Jon’s dinner! So the four Team Captains chose their teams and we were almost ready to move on… except one team only had two people. So I drafted my friend Natalie who has recently returned to Chicago & Lillstreet to join us in the activities. She was great to agree on such short notice!!!

To kick it off… I had each team fill out a worksheet to assign who might be the “competitor” in some of the challenges… only using cryptic hints as to what the challenge would be.

CHALLENGE ONE
Each team had one bag of clay, a wire tool and one competitor to cut it up into predetermined weights. No scale. No weighing of the pieces. Just their best judgement with a chance to compare each ball to each other. At the end of the challenge, we weighed the balls of clay… to add up the variances. Team that was the closest to the correct weights would win the challenge!

We then did a bit of housekeeping…
Each team had a chance to even out their weighting mistakes, making sure their balls of clay were the correct weight. They then wedged them up – while another member of their team set-up a wheel for future throwing challenges!

CHALLENGE TWO
This time we had two competitors for each team… each using a two-pound ball of clay. They had a limited amount of time to hand roll the longest coils they could…. and limited table space! And here’s the twist… if your coil were to break during the challenge, you’re done! No squishing it back together. We would just measure the longest segment while the others continue to roll clay.

CHALLENGE THREE
For the next challenge… it was the third member of each team who did NOT roll a coil that was up! Now they had to use the recently-rolled coils to build the tallest coil cylinder. Simple enough, right? They could not continue rolling the coils… and it had to be freestanding at the end.

CHALLENGE FOUR
We then switched to a wheelthrowing challenge. All three players on each team would get a 3-pound ball of clay. Using one wheel per team, they would take turns throwing matching bowls! The first person would throw a bowl, and then they switched places as the second person stepped up to match that first bowl. Now with two bowls in, the third person stepped in to match the first two! Harder than it sounds… since there was no going back to “fix up” or alter the previous bowls!

CHALLENGE FIVE
We stuck with wheelthrowing for the next challenge… this time with two pre-determined players. Again with a three pound ball of clay they had to throw one “perfect” bowl. And here’s the twist… One throwing. One driving. Yep, one person was doing all of the centering & throwing… while the other person had complete control over the speed on the foot pedal.

 Whoops!!!…  I missed the photos of this one! But trust me, it was fun to watch!

CHALLENGE SIX
After two wheelthrowing challenges… we switched back to handbuilding for a slab throwing competition. With five pounds of clay, they had to throw the largest slab of clay… round-robin fashion with each team member taking a turn. And again, if their slab broke at any point… they were done with the challenge. No squishing it back together! Largest surface area wins!

It’s a “shame” no one had any fun!!!

CHALLENGE SEVEN
For their final challenge.. and the funniest… for me… each team had to throw one final “perfect” bowl with a four pound ball of clay. They would each have two minutes… switch… two minutes… switch… two minutes… Two full rounds of working on the same bowl. Yes, each team would continue to work on their one bowl to make it as “perfect” as they could. Each person had two “two-minute” chances to help their team

And here’s the best part… for ME at least… all the while BLINDFOLDED!!!

And then the final challenge envelope… THEIR HOMEWORK!!!

PSYCH!!!

They have no homework this week as they have all been working so hard over the past couple weeks.. the deserve a break – and some tie to make what ever they want for a change!

And again, I have the BEST STUDENTS EVER!!!
Each of them embraced my crazy challenges and played along with my silly reindeer games!

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Okay, so right off the bat… I need to apologize for not having the best photos this time!
I regret NOT getting photos of everyone’s nesting bowl sets. The bowls were all squeezed onto one table… some were stacked… some were not.. some were still too wet to move… and my mind was swirling knowing that I had to pick the TOP TWO… and more importantly, knowing that I had a LOT of crazy fun challenges that we had to get started quickly if we were going to get around to all of them?!

So this week’s homework challenge was a set of three wheelthrown nesting bowls. A tough challenge to get done in just one week! And to up the ante even more… I added a secondary challenge for EXTRA CREDIT BONUS POINTS!!! If the they were to make a nesting set of FIVE bowls and still get chosen for the TOP TWO… they would win huge bonus points!!!

Donna made this adorable set of nesting bowls…
a wonderful set for the “handbuilder” in the class! Her fit & sizing was spot-on!

Dave went for a nesting set of FIVE… but had a few issues along the way…
so he ended with a set of four porcelain bowls decorated with some blue underglaze.

Susan went for a set of FIVE nesting bowls.. and took a narrative spin on “nesting” as well!!! She bowls were beautifully decorated on the outside with some colored slip and sgraffito “nest” and “leaf” patterns. She even went as far has having nests & eggs inside a few of them… and an “empty nest” for when the kids leave!

Claire made a lot of bowls that all stacked well… and were ULTRA-light!!! Some brushed on colored slip details to bring them all together!

Patti was chosen as one of the TOP TWO with these very well-thrown,
well-trimmed and perfecting nesting bowls. The simple perfection of the underglaze
decoration helped with the win!

Tatiana won the BIG BONUS PRIZE for her set of five nesting bowls…
well, actually more than FIVE!!! Again so sorry I didn’t get a photo of her full set stacked.
They were pretty wet still, so they were stacked & unstacked very quickly by Tatiana.
She threw several porcelain bowls and then altered their shape and gave them
some great textures & patterns scraped on the outsides!

So much fun to see one of my Tuesday Night pottery students “test driving” her new V-tip DiamondCore Tools for the very first time… first time with this tool AND first time carving all together!!! Looks like Jen is off to an AMAZING start… a little carving prodigy in the making!!!