This past week my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN students rocked my word!!!
They were challenged to make Salt & Pepper Shakers… with a theme!
THE BEATLES.

I gave them a list of some of the most popular Beatles songs.
And then the TOP TWO winners of the first in-class challenge got to choose their own song title. The the second TOP TWO winners from the second in-class challenge got to “assign” the rest of the themes to everyone else in class! So they left class with a classic Beatles song on which they had to base their salt & pepper shaker set on… with a thematic tray to hold them all together.

So how well do YOU know your Beatles Songs? See if you can figure these out…

CLAIRE

JON

TERESA

DAVID

But I especially loved how the holes “unintentionally” lined-up to become eyes!!!

RYAN

SUSAN

TAYLOR

JACOB

MOLLY

And our TOP TWO WINNERS for the week…

DONNA

TATIANA

So there they are… a bunch of AMAZING salt & pepper shakers!!!
They definitely stepped up to the challenge!!!

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Need a few answers to the Beatles Trivia S&P Challenge???

CLAIRE -         Blackbird
JON -                Rocky Raccoon
TERESA -         I Am The Walrus
DAVID -           While My Guitar Gently Weeps
RYAN -             Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
SUSAN -           Yellow Submarine
TAYLOR -        Across The Universe
JACOB -           Norwegian Wood
MOLLY -          Octopus’s Garden
DONNA -         Strawberry Fields
TATIANA -      Paperback Writer

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After tackling their wheelthrown spheres, we stuck with the geometric vibe, but switched over to handbuilding. And their next challenge was to handbuild a “perfect” cube… minimum of 4-inch wide. With only a half hour to finish it… they had to work fast with a dedicated plan. Many of them realized quickly that freshly thrown slabs aren’t as rigid as they would have hoped for. But they all perservered… along with some “structures” to help hold up their walls as they forged ahead. They were all a little “iffy” as the start… but quite impressive when they all came together in the final minutes!!!

For some reason, Patti & Jon decided to work together… which was adorable… but they only made ONE cube?! Not quite right… my thinking was each person should make a cube… so it makes sense that two people should make two cubes, right?

Sheesh… look at that craftsmanship… nice sharp corners there Jacob!

At the end of the thirty minutes, we had a table full of square cubes. Some had curved corners. Some were sagging a bit in the middle. All of them were pretty well assembled considering the time constraint.

And again, look at the sharp corners that Jacob had on his winning cube!
He was in the TOP TWO along with our “token” handbuilder Donna!

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After last week’s POTTERY THROWDOWN class where they decorated tiles and a cylinder using that one tool… their “homework” was to throw another cylinder at least 9-inches tall… and then decorate that new one with that same one tool. Looking to see how the design transformed from the two-dimensional tile, to a smaller cylinder… and then even larger where there was even more “canvas” to decorate. This time, they had to use THAT ONE TOOL as their primary decorating tool, but they could also embellish with other surface decoration techniques as well.

Unfortunately… Teresa, Jon & Patti missed the class the week before…
so they didn’t have a tile or a cylinder to work from.
All they had was their homework assignment… and ONE TOOL.

Teresa

Jon

Patti

And now back to the original challenge… with tiles, cylinders and their new vases!

Susan

Jacob

Taylor

Tatiana

Claire

Dave

Molly

And now our TOP TWO WINNERS…

Ryan who carved out all of the areas with the dull metal part that was inside his tool.. and then applied each cut-out to the vase to make it even more dimensional.

Donna who started with a simple heart design on her nine tiles, then extrapolated one tile of the heart into the five dots and one hexagon for the cylinder… and then came back and combined them all back together for her heart-themed vase… still with the dots and hexagons!

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To kick-off our party last Wednesday night, my students took on the “FACE THE COOKIE” Challenge from Minute-To-Win-It. Basically, you put a cookie on your forehead… and then slowly move the cookie down with just facial muscles & expressions… until you get the cookie in your mouth! So I made a challenge… succeed with the cookie in the mouth in one minute and they would get an additional “five minute advantage” in one of the two challenges in class that night.

Crazy fun for everyone… perhaps too much fun… as we got shooshed a bit…
and told to keep it down. How dare we have too much fun in class?!!!

And yes… they “forced” me to give it a try too… harder than it looks…
but the REWARD of success is pretty darn sweet!

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MORE EXCITING NEWS… I just saw that two of my students did a little shopping
on their way into my pottery class tonight. Looks like a party in the making…
we’ll just change the name of our class to the OREO THROWDOWN!!!

Looks like we’re off to a great start in celebrating NATIONAL OREO COOKIE DAY!!!

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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