The final “surprise” challenge for my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class was to interpret five different words onto five different tiles. They each received the same words & a blank tile, and then had fifteen minutes to “represent” the word on each tile. The words were PAISLEY, NOSTALGIA, CHAOS, FESTIVE and JUXTAPOSITION. Always fun for me as the observer to watch each of them approach a challenge in different ways – both in interpreting the word and their handbuilding approach & techniques!
On the final night of the LILLSTREET THROWDOWN, my students came in thinking they were pretty much done except for some critiques, judging & points… but they were WRONG!!! I surprised them with one last challenge… decorating tiles with only 15 minutes per tile.
And oh, but wait there’s more... each of their five tiles had to each represent a different given word… chosen by me!
For this week’s LILLSTREET THROWDOWN, my students brought in their homework from last week. Which was trimming & decorating with slip trailing on the four “matching” vases they threw during class last week. It was fun to see how each of them approached the challenge differently… many of them slip trailing for the very first time!!!
As I had mentioned, I went to CITY MUSEUM yesterday in St. Louis… and finally worked my way through editing my photos to share! I’ve heard about CITY MUSEUM for years, but really had no idea what to expect… and if I did, it wasn’t this!!!
This might be the CRAZIEST “museum” I’ve ever been to… in the best way possible!!! I LOVED it!!! Such a crazy & amazing collection of stuff… stacked, piled, installed & layered all over the multi-level building. Including stuff on the rooftop and sticking out the side. Tons of slides, ramps, spiral staircases, tubes & crazy ways to get around. Think steampunk meets jungle gym… meets flea market… meets vintage carnival… meets caverns… meets aquarium… and so much MORE!!!
The guy at the Front Desk said that if you feel lost, you’re doing great. So much fun… and yet so eclectic & wild. A definite must-see in St. Louis… but wear your gym clothes if you really want to play!!!
Some times you’re just driving down a sidestreet… minding your own business…. you run across an EXPLOSION OF CREATIVITY! I just love this collection of handmade & handpainted birdhouses all over this tree! Just a normal house… with some AMAZING little houses hanging in their tree!!! So cool… so creative! What a great collection & fun for the whole neighborhood!
So we’ve seen a recent interest & surge in underglaze transfers around Lillstreet Art Center! Tons of students are starting to use these pre-made, commercial underglaze transfer sheets to add some surface decoration to their pots. We’ve had some recent discussions on whether these transfers are “cheating” or not?! I’ve also enjoyed watching some of my students trying different techniques to modify or use these transfers in different ways.
In my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class, Darcy has been using a lot of underglaze transfers on her work. We’ve all sort of fallen in love with this great mandala pattern.
We’ve also been giving her a hard time… by telling her how much better they would look if the back & white mandala were painted-in with bright colors! You know, kinda like a little paint-by-number fill-in situation. Luckily, also in this class is Christine who is all about bright colors & underglazes. Sounds like the perffect match, right?!
So we keep teasing Christine that it’s HER job to paint these in… and that’s going nowhere fast. Christine is not bowing to any sort of fun peer pressure!
But then Darcy came up with a great idea… and a fun challenge. She offered to make some basic cylinders, and then let us decorate them with colorful underglazes… and then she would put the underglaze transfers OVER the colored underglazes. She offered it up to our whole class… but only Christine & I took her up on it. So we each got two cylinders to decorate as part of Darcy’s challenge!
So my thought was to sponge-paint some blended colors onto the cylinder that might “mimic” and possible align a bit with the underglaze transfer.
And Christine went a different route with her ombre’ blend of underglazes. She had chosen a different pattern for her underglaze transfer… so she wasn’t as concerned with her pattern “matching-up” with the transfer pattern. Instead she went with two different ombre’ blends.
Luckily
Luckily, Christine has a great assortment of underglazes that she has tested, tried at different firing temperatures and made amazing test tiles with. Thanks to Christine for sharing her high-fire underglazes… and for letting me use her colors for this fun little challenge!
After a couple layers of underglaze, we both called the “done” for our part of the Darcy Challenge!
And then Darcy came in later that night and added the underglaze transfers OVER our underglaze paintings! Pretty impressive… I think they look pretty great so far. Can’t wait to see what they look like after firing and a light layer of clear glaze to really make the colors pop!
Thanks for the challenge Darcy!!! You know how much I LOVE a good challenge… and having people prove me wrong about the underglaze transfers being a way of “cheating.” I might need to reconsider when these come out of the kiln???
And oh, but wait there’s more… It’s 2:22pm right now… so that makes it “two – twenty-two – twenty-two – two – twenty-two”… doesn’t get much better than this!!!
Apparently, on “Words With Friends”… they don’t consider OREO to be a valid word?! What?… I know I actually use that word in conversation like four, five, ten times a day!!!
Who knew that retro Valentine Cards had so much pottery in them?! Lots of teapots, bowls & cups to brighten your day with some really bad puns!!! You know I like a good “Dad Joke” as much as the next… but seriously?!
