Once the slabs were thrown, cut-off to rectangular shapes and measured… the next Olympic Event was to decorate, carve or texture the slabs! My THROWDOWN suggestion was to work together and have a concerted design plan for the slab! And yes, pandering to my love of a good theme can’t hurt any!

Continuing on with our handbuilding challenges, my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN students tackled pulling handmade slabs on the table using two pounds of clay as part of our Pottery Olympics.

Again, the rule was if something breaks off you cannot squish it back on. The goal was to make the largest contiguous “rectangular” slab by area… and yes, we were measuring!!!

The next “event” of The Pottery Olympics was to see who could roll the longest continuous coil using two pounds of clay. The rule was that if your coil breaks, you cannot squish is back together! You could keep rolling with what was left…as we were looking for the longest coil in 10 minutes!

After rolling, the team-mates were then challenged to make the tallest free-standing “tower” cylinder using the coil. And yes, we even’d out the playing field by making the tower builders all use the same length of coil. Turns out the big discussion was if the one in the center was indeed a “cylinder” or not?… your vote???

By the end of class Thursday night, we had a table full of fresh fruits… and some “not-so-fresh” clay fruits! At times it was tough to tell the difference… so we put the clay trompe l’oeiil ones on white plates for presentation! Such an amazing night with my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN peeps… showing off their handbuilding skills with a fun & fruity challenge!!!

Once the twist was revealed, my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN students had a half hour to paint their handbuilt fruits. Their clay fruits looked great without color… but the underglazes really brought them to LIFE!!!

With just a half hour left to the challenge… I thought we needed a bit of a THROWDOWN twist. Fresh fruits need vibrant colors, right?! So the add-on twist was to paint all of their fruits to make them even more realistic with underglazes. This pear and this “bottom-of-a-bucket-palette” were both part of my demo!

This week’s class challenge for my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN was to create trompe l’oeil replicas of colorful fresh fruits. They each drew three names randomly to determine which fruits they had to tackle. Then we put their handbuilding skills to the test to recreate every bump, groove, bruise & stem!

For this week’s LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class project, I decided to kick it off with a little visual inspiration! Only Mother Nature can create this amazing collection of shapes, colors & textures! But my students were going to give it a try too!!!

Last night was the first night of our new “season” of THE GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN! A fun class full of challenges, contests & projects! To kick-off the “season” I challenged them with both wheelthrowing & handbuilding tasks with a geometric twist… and a bit of multitasking! The challenge was a wheelthrown sphere, a 6-inch slab-built cube, and a 12-inch coil-built cone. Each with a limited time frame, as the challenges start to “pile-up” on each other as the night went on.

I always enjoy watching how my “contestants” approach a challenge, manage their time, and finish it all off in the end. It was a fun night & a fun challenge… and they all did great!!! We’re off to a great start.

So they started off with wheelthrowing a perfectly round sphere!

Part way into their allotted time for the sphere… I stopped the clock, called them over, and they found out about having to make a 6-inch cube with slabs. So now they had TWO projects to work on… multi-tasking & considering how to best utilize their limited time!

A little further into the challenge… we stopped the clock one more time… wished Melanie a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!… and then added a third challenge. They now had to also make a 12-inch tall coil-built cone!!!

So they now had all three challenges… and some more time to multi-task… so they kind of bounced around the place trying to finish all three in time!!!

At the end of the time, we pulled all three pieces together for critique & judging. We chose our top sphere, top cube & top cone… as well top trio!

Okay, so maybe one of the cones didn’t quite get finished in time… but bonus points for getting so creative with it!!!

But then there was one last-minute challenge… a little homework for the team! The cubes are not quite done… their “homework” is o take their cubes homes and do some creative textural carving on them for judging next week!

Here’s my December chain for the 2021 Monthly Chain Challenge… stamped, glazed & painted. It’s gone through a few variations, but now it’s gold & done!!! So much fun to finish the monthly challenge… the brainchild of my friend Sarah Chapman. Originally intended for metalsmiths, but FUN for me too!!!

#chainchallenge2021 – #handmadechain – #chainlinks2021