Last night I taught another beginning wheelthrowing class as a sub for Jayson. He had requested two things… stamping and bubble glazing demos for his students. DONE! Sure, the stamping is the easy one… but the bubbles are more FUN FOR EVERYONE!!!

So we started with a base coat of a single glaze. For my bowl, I went with a shiny white glaze for a good clean bottom layer. Thinking it would be a good clean canvas for the colored bubbles on top.

Once that base layer was dry, I cleaned off the bottom and prepared the bubbles. So we took a small disposable plastic cup, and filled it with maybe a 1/4″ of glaze. I let the student choose, so my bubbles were a shiny purple colored glaze. We added a few drops of DAWN dishwashing liquid and a straw. Stir it up and start to blow some bubbles… like you’re six again! Just don’t inhale!!!

As the bubbles start to accumulate and fill the cup, get ready to “spill” them onto your pre-glazed piece. As the cup overflows with bubbles, just let them gather on the sies of you rpot. We were using a banding wheel so we could easily rotate the pot to get the bubbles all over. A slower steady blowing into the straw seems to get larger bubbles. Forceful fast blowing seems to create smaller bubbly foam.

Once you’ve covered your pot with bubbles, just sit back and watch the magic happen. The bubbles start to pop all by themselves leaving thsi really great pattern of glaze “residue” behind. Leave it as it is… or add more bubbles if you want?!

We decided to go one step further… cause “more is more”, right?... and we added a second layer of bubbles in a different color. So my second layer is a flat blue glaze. If you look closely, you can see the “purple” bubbles made the white pattern, and the “blue” bubbles made the darker beige color. Who knows how this is going to turn out after firing?… but I bet it’s going to be pretty darn groovy!!!

After my demo, some of the students had their bisque ready to go… let the bubbling begin!!!

One guy even decided to double-down… errr, triple-down?.. and go for bubble glazing three mugs all at one time! Crazy, right?…. I LOVE IT!!!

SO he covered all three with bubbly foaming glaze… and you can see how the pattern stats to show up as the bubbles pop by themselves.

A very random, spider-webby, splattery kind of glaze effect. I hope I get a chance to see these when they come out of the kiln…. so guarantee since this wasn’t my class or my students?! But we’ll see… I’ll keep an eye out for them!

As we are in Week Nine of ten, we’re coming down to the wire in my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN pottery challenges class. Last night was their final “Quick-Throw Challenge.” Tallest cylinder thrown with just one pound of clay in 15 minutes. A classic challenge testing their basic throwing skills. I think they were all surprised to find out it wasn’t quite as easy as they had assumed.

After the time was up, we did a bit of comparing…
trying to rank them from top to bottom… tallest to shortest for points!

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So my students are KILLING IT this session! I’m teaching a new class and having a great time. It’s my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class loosely base don the BBC reality show. We’re more than halfway through and they’ve just finished their first real handbuilding challenge! Sure, we could have done something easy… but what fun is that. So we dove right in and went for a handbuilt butter dish!!!

And here they are in all of their buttery glory!!!

And a tribute to architect Frank Gehry…

This one was a bit too large… so we were joking that it was “Large Marge-erine.”
So she went for it!!!

Love this one with the attached knife holder…

This one is extra sweet with a handmade ceramic butter knife too!

And probably the most inventive & creative of the bunch…

Even better when put into the scene parked at the ol’ trailer park!!!

Plus, sadly... the one that didn’t quite make it into the kiln in time…
We all would have loved to see this one glazed and done like the rest of them!

And the big winner… with Catherine tackling her handbuilding challenge with porcelain!
With beautiful simplicity and a perfect fit.

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So if you recall our last class, I had all of my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN students throw platters “thinking” that they were going for the widest diameter platter. But then I flipped it on them and had them paint it with a dark colored slip… and told them the REAL CHALLENGE was going to be the Sgraffito Challenge… SURPRISE!!!

Of course I threw mine into the mix… since I was challenged to participate by Taylore…
of course, mine wasn’t in for points… just for fun!

I drafted longtime Lillstreet potter Lester to be our special “surprise” Guest Judge.
He was eager to accept, but quickly realized it’s not any easy task ranking all of this hard work from 1 to 15. He took his task very seriously, and gave some very “realistic” comments & critiques along the way. Unfortunately, he started off by saying he’s not a fan of “geometric” sgraffito… so many people had an uphill battlle to win points from Lester!

So here are the “entries” in our first “Sgraffito Surprise Challenge.” To think that they threw these platters a week ago, and they’ve already finished decorating & carving them is pretty impressive… especially when several of my students had never really tackled sgraffito!!! Amazing work team! In no particular order… until the end!

And Ryan’s accidental entry! This was his SECOND sgraffito platter!!! His back-up plan so to speak. It wasn’t intended to be in the contest since he preferred his other one. But in the mix-up of setting up and putting all platters on the table, somehow his made it into the mix! So this angler fish was part of the judging… but points values awarded were worked out to accommodate this slight mix-up.

And the big sgraffito winner… this beauty by Stacey! Even though I wasn;’t the judge… this was my favorite too. I love the way the plant is in the center and overlaps the border. Love the woodcut look of her style. And the way she cleared out the white background but left the texture and just a smidge of color in between. Now I think Stacey needs to make a set of plates like this…each with a different botanical element.

So last night in my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN challenge class, I surprised my students with another quick-fire throwing challenge. I had them wedge up a large, ten-pound ball of clay much to the griping & moaning of my students. A bigger ball of clay than many of them have ever wedged! I had them all set up a wheel with splash pan, water, tools, etc… all the basics they would need to throw some pots.

The I pulled a small, little mass-produced green bowl from IKEA. And I explained since that is very much a “mass-produced” bowl.. we’re going to mass produce replicas! So the challenge was to throw as many matching little bowls to that sample one off-the-hump as possible in thirty minutes. I did a very quick demo of how to throw off-the-hump for those who had never tackled it before. And then they were off!!! 30 minutes!!! GO!!!

Once they got into the rhythm, and accustomed to the depth, width & technique…
the little bowls just started piling up everywhere! So fun to watch them multiplying.

At the end of the thirty minutes, many of them had come close to finishing the full ten pounds of clay. We brought all of the bowls to the table for a little self-critique, judging and squishing. They were each given points for the number of bowls that were “deemed” matching, or at least close enough. The winner of the challenge was “Tay-Tay Clay-Wedger” with 29 mini bowls!!! Amazing.

Last week my class tackled sgraffito for the first time!
They worked on cylinders and then were challenged to throw and finish a sgraffito platter by next Thursday.

So last night I was at the studio and I saw a handful of my students working hard on their assignment. So good to see them all taking the challenge to heart… and helping each other so much. So supportive. So encouraging. But then the Throwdown Challenge was Thrown Back at ME!!! One of my students challenged me to do the sgraffito platter challenge as well. And you know how I LOVE a challenge!!!

I’m in.
So last night I threw my porcelain platter… and tried to dry it a bit faster than normal.

After awhile, I added a band of black slip along the perimeter. This will be the “canvas” for my sgraffito decoration. Now I just need to figure out a plan… what my design is going to be.

Oh yeah, and I need to find some time to work on this before Thursday night’s class?!!!!
That’s the really tough part!

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After an hour of class time spent carving, each of the cylinders were considered “done”…
at least for the challenge. Ready for judging and Throwdown Points!

Special thanks to our surprise Guest Judge Darlys Ewoldt from the Lillstreet Metals Dept.
Her design sensibilities and attention to detail really came in handy!

Prior to this “Sgraffito Surprise” they also did a platter throwing challenge with six pounds of clay. Which they “assumed” would be a challenge for points. I told them we were going for widest diameter. But never more details. We left them to “stiffen up” on the wheels while we moved to the tables for this “Sgraffito Surprise.” When the points were awards… then next challenge was revealed…

The platter throwing challenge was really just a w ay for them to make a great “canvas” for themselves. SO I told them they needed to paint a layer of dark slip on their own platters. And now they have a week to carve a sgraffito design onto their platters for judging and points next Thursday night!!!

Here are the carved & decorated cylinders at then end of their hour challenge…

And then the big winner… with her VERY FIRST sgraffito attempt ever!!!
“Peggy Burnish-ine” for the WIN!!!

And of course the whimsical “addition” of a marshmallow PEEP as a handle
could only give her some added bonus points!!!

Special thanks to the folks at  Springfield Pottery for supplying some of our sgraffito visual inspiration for the evening. And for inspiring “Peggy Burnish-ine” to borrow some ideas for her first sgraffito attempt ever!!! A beautiful homage to the sgraffito genius of Jennifer Falter!

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Last week in my POTTERY THROWDOWN class, I surprised my students with the “SGRAFFITO SURPRISE”!!! We talked briefly about sgraffito and looked at some examples. And then I “sprung it on them”… one hour to decorate a black slip covered cylinder I had prepped prior to class. So much to watch how each of them approached the challenge… and tackled the blank canvas with some sharp carving tools.

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Another “sweet” night in class…
Not only was it a big night for the LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class…
but we also had plenty of OREO treats!!! Easter snacks as well as some OREOs “imported” all the way from Costa Rica!!!

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