Also this Thursday night, during our Throwdown Challenge class, we did a quick flip to handbuilding. Now most of my students are wheelthrowers… and NOT handbuilders! So the FLIP was on them!!! So I told them to wedge up two balls of clay… one one-pound ball, and another five pound ball.

So their first challenge was to take the one pound ball of clay to the table when it was their turn. And I gave them each five minutes to roll the longest coil that they could by hand. No tools except their hands. They could use the entire five minutes, or stop sooner if they thought they were done. Because if their coil were to break at any point in the coil rolling, their challenge was done – no re-attaching!!! And we would measure the longest remainder of their coil. Points were awarded for the longest coil.

Love the grimace… a little tough at the start… but it smoothed out later on…

What precipitated this handbuilding challenge was a discussion last week on how none of them really knew how to roll a coil… which flabbergasted me! I thought it was such a basic skill, but they were quick to point out that I have never taught it to them. To which I retorted that it was a wheelthrowing class, and not a handbuilding class. So I gave them a quick tutorial last week as an option for making handles. I even showed them how to resolve a bad coil… you know, one that is a bit rectangular and goes thump, thump, thump when you roll it. Just take the coil and twist it like a corkscrew (as seen below right) and then roll the coil again to smooth it all out.

We were all impressed when one of our few “Porcelain Players” decided to take on the challenge with porcelain. And then proceeded to impress the heck out of us with one of the longest coils of the night!!!

Of course, at the end of the challenge, a couple of my students threw down the gauntlet and challenged me to do the same challenge… rolling the longest coil possible out of one pound of clay! So I did…

And it was going pretty well… until I got a little “greedy” with just a few seconds left…
and a piece of it broke off and didn’t count in my final measurement. All in all,
still a respectable showing in the Coil Rolling Challenge!!!

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So it’s another week of The Great Lillstreet Throwdown!
And another challenge… turning their four matching mugs into The Four Seasons!

So my students brought their “greenware finished” sets of mugs to class.
They set them out for all to see… and for our special Guest Judge Sam Hostert to come in
and award them points for their efforts. Thanks to Jon for some of these beautiful photos!

It was so much fun to see how everyone approached the challenge. How to depict the Four Seasons on four mugs???… illustrative? narrative? literal? figurative? symbolically?… so many options. And only four mugs!!!

So here are the sets of mugs… in no particular order…

The Four Seasons depicted with a tree through the seasons… and a special surprise on the bottom of each mug.

A seasonally-appropriate bug on the bottom of each mug!!!

Abstract brushwork showing the color palette of the seasons… winter, spring, summer & fall.

Straight forward and quite literally… spelling it out clearly for all to see…

The phases of a lant through the season… carved & inlaid illustrations in black with color-coded interiors to help show the season. Didn’t quite make first place… but “not-so-secretly” this one was my favorite set!!!

High-contrast black & white… porcelain & black slip depicting the sunlight cycle throughout the year… shown in the amount of white “sun” in relation to the black “night”. As an added bonus… a brief explanation carved on the bottom of each mug.

The seasons as seen on a mountain top… and something to do with a “mountain meditation” too.

Sponge-painted underglazes to show the change of colors for the change of seasons.

Another tree changing through the season… snow, flowers, leaves & fall foliage.

An erudite entry… the Four Seasons as seen through alchemical symbols.

Graphic contrast in black & white symbolizing day & night through the year…
and a brilliant surprise on the bottom of each cup.

Graphic symbolism for the moon & sun attached to the sides of this set.

No one specified “which” four seasons were to represented…
so this set went more for the activities of the seasons!

And unfortunately, this entry didn’t quite work. There was a last minute attempt at applying a cut-out stencil on the side, them paingint the darker slip color over the stencil -a nd then pulling it out. Apparently in the rush to make the deadline, the stencils didn’t quite get pulled out cleanly… something stuck… something didn’t… and in the last moment she decided to paint them over and call it done. Valiant effort.

So for now, the mugs are done. They can go off to the bisque firing and then get glazed. No more challenges for these mugs… but I did ask my students to bring them back to class when they’re finished just so we can see them!

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My class Tuesday night was great fun… and always my favorite demo of the session. My new beginners have nbeen working on their centering & throwing skills on cylinders. And of course they’ve “found” a few bowls along the way. Well this week we focused on throwing a good bowl on purpose instead of a cylinder gone bad.

So the way the demo goes is I first sit down to tshow them out to make the basic bowl with a nice rounded interior. No beginner bulges here! After the demo & questions, I set them free to go make their own bowls…. while I continue to throw a full bag of clay into bowls! Once all sixteen bowls were thrown, we re-grouped at my wheel to do some quick tricks & techniques for altering the bowls. I’m a big fan of putting your own twist or design on a bowl… instead of just leaving it round. Anyone can do that. So here are the sixteen tricks I showed the,….

Bowl 1 – a simple bowl with four fluted points and a nice spiral in the bottom.

Bowl 2 – And if four fluted spots are good, maybe eight would be better?

Bowl 3 – Then we flared out the rim to create a nice flanged rim. A perfect sot to do some decorating later. Carving, stamping, slip, glazing, whatever… you now have a nice “canvas” there on the rim.

Bowl 4 – And if “some” flange is good… “more” flange might be better???

Bowl 5 – And then we combined the fluted rim with the flared flange rim.

Bowl 6 – A simple texture pressed into the bottom with a metal dragonscaling tool.

Bowl 7 – And who says bowls need to stay round?… not me…
as we dented in four points to make a clover-ish shape.

Bowl 8 – Next we decided to split the rim with the point of a wooden knife. I then pinched it into four even spaces… and then two more on opposite sides. They all loved that… but the gasps were audible when I stretched it out of shape to an oval. I don’t think they like this one too much…. but I’m sure they’ll come around when they see it with a strap handle to turn it more into a basket later.

Bowl 9 – Again with the split rim, this time four flares out and four flares in…
denting it with the curved side of my wooden knife.

Bowl 10 – Next I introduced them to colored slip. And showed them how easily they can create a two-tone pot faster & cleaner with slip than they would be able to with two buckets of glaze. This is a simple black slip… which I believe I’ll be carving into for a little sgrafitto demo next week.

Bowl 11 – For this one I coated the interior with a thick white slip, and then dragged the rounded end of my wooden knife through to reveal the clay color while the bowl was turning on the wheel.

Bowl 12 – The same coating of thick white slip inside the bowl… but this time some squiggly finger-painting & dragging through the bowl while it was spinning.

Bowl 13 – Again with the thick white slip interior, this time chattered with a rhythmic tapping of my green rubber rib… up & down through the slip, and out towards the rim as the bowl is sinning. This design is slightly different every time based on the speed of your tapping and the speed of the wheel rotating.

Bowl 14 – A simple spiral of black slip as squirted from a small bottle… and a small fluted edge using the side of a medium Sharpie marker!!!

Bowl 15 – A simple lesson on how easy it is to make bands of color… just hold the paint brush still and spin the wheel. My guess is that these bands of green slip will be carved through at some point.

Bowl 16 – An ombre blend of white to green slip… and I’m loving the tight spiral of thick slip in the bottom of the bowl.

So for now… all sixteen bowls are up in my studio under plastic. I’m “pretty sure” that there will be some stamping, decorating & refining of these before I get around to trimming. Just a hunch.

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So now that they have their mugs assembled, it’s time for my Pottery Throwdown students to embellish them. So last night towards the end of class, the next challenge was revealed. They now need to take their four matching mugs and decorate them to represent, signify, resemble, interpret or otherwise show some influence by The Four Seasons. They have until class next Thursday to “finish them up” and bring them to class as they’re drying to greenware!

It’s completely up to them how they approach the project…
stylized & graphic?… sculptural?… illustrative?… carved?… stamped?… sgraffito?… painted?…
or otherwise “naturally” inspired!!!

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Last night in our Pottery Throwdown Challenge class, my students were tasked with trimming and adding matching handles to four matching cylinders in ninety minutes. Sounds like a lot of time, but it went right down to the wire! It was great fun to watch how they processed, produced, prioritized and approached the challenge. A matching set of four mugs compared, judged & points awarded as the coolest clay contest continues… and these mugs are NOT done yet!!!

Special thanks to Fred for (eating our cookies and…) being our special Guest Judge last night for the matching handles challenge!

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Another class. Another OREO.
Last night we had the new Chocolate Hazelnut flavor.

I know I “should” like them… but why “ruin” my chocolate with that darn hazelnut flavor?!
I actually preferred the red-hot cinnamon ones!!! Yes, I have the palate of a four-year old.

Thanks to Taylore & Ryan for “importing” them for class last night!!!

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After the bowl challenge, my Lillstreet Throwdown students moved on to matching cylinders. So they had five minutes to throw their own “perfect” cylinder. They thought that was it… but after setting their own standard, the “real” challenge was announced. They had an hour to throw as many matching cylinders to their own “perfect” prototype!

When that hour ended, they got points for the ones that matched, and the ones that didn’t match… SQUISH!!!

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So last night was the second night of The Great Lillstreet Throwdown!!!
My new class on Thursday nights “loosely” based… err, inspired by The Great Pottery Throwdown on BBC.

Last week their first challenge was to throw a 3-pound bowl in 20 minutes.
They could make it any size, any shape. Knowing that it was going to be judged & scored at the end. So they all put their best foot forward… err, on the pottery wheel foot pedal.

And then SURPRISE!!!
After they were all ranked & scored, the next surprise was laid down…
By each of them passing their freshly thrown bowl to the third person to their right.
The challenge was now to trim, finish and decorate their “new” bowl by the next class.

And that class just happened to be last night.
So they all brought in their greenware “finished” bowls for judging.
Here is a quick overview of the “finished” bowls… one week after the first throwing challenge!

And one last bowl entry… apparently straight from the reclaim bucket!!!
The student missed last week’s class but was in the process of discarding this bowl when one of the other students stopped her and pulled it out of the bucket so she would have in the challenge!!!

It was pretty obvious that a few of them were “playing the game” and quite possibly looking for a little advantage with their choices of design content. Did you notice the bike themed bowl???… or this little lovely…

Little did they know that I would NOT be the one judging their bowls.
So their “sucking up” wouldn’t work! Instead, I had my friend & fellow teacher Mike Skiersch stop by as our Guest Judge for the evening. He analyzed, lifted, touched and critiqued as he tried his best to rank them from best to worst.

And then it was on to the next challenge…

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Last night was only the second class of the new session for my Beginners…
and they’ve already thrown, trimmed and made mugs!!!!…
oh yeah, and a couple new stamps just for fun!

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Online registration for the new Winter Session of classes at Lillstreet Art Center opens today!!! I will again be teaching my Beginning/Advanced Beginning Class on Tuesday nights.

And NEW this session… a fun new class based on the BBC reality show “The Great Pottery Throwdown.” Every Thursday night will be filled with challenges, games, contests and all around ceramic shenanigans!

Sign up quick… my classes fill up fast!!!

To register online, click here for Lillstreet Art Center.

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