Looking to find a little more zen & calm in your 2021???…
don’t forget a new session of pottery classes start next week at Lillstreet Art Center. My Beginning & Intermediate classes are already full, but there is still space in my Advanced Wheelthrowing class on Thursday mornings from 10:00am-1:00pm. Click on the link if you want to improve your skills, streamline your techniques, or just relax & get muddy with us starting next week!

Click here – Advanced Wheelthrowing classes!

Looking for something fun to do this New Year?!
Push yourself & play with your clay!!!

Registration is open for THE GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN – season four!!! Based on the BBC reality show, this class is for intermediate & advanced potters who want to jump-start the New Year. Creative projects, challenges, contests & races to keep it challenging & fun for everyone!!! Click on the link below to sign-up for this Thursday night class at Lillstreet Art Center… always one of my favorite classes to teach!

Click here – THE GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN

Registration opened today for the Winter 2021 session at Lillstreet Art Center. I will be teaching four different classes… for ALL levels of potters! Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced and my favorite… The Great Lillstreet Throwdown!!! Click on the link below to sign-up… as spaces will fill quickly since they’re still limiting classes to eight students again for effective social-distancing… with plenty of safety measure, hand sanitizers & full masks required!

Click here to register for Lillstreet classes!

Another beautiful day in Chicago. The sun was shining, the sky bright blue and some of the honey locust trees on the side of Lillstreet are still in full golden splendor. I taught class this morning and worked in the studio all afternoon… but that doesn’t mean you can’t sneak out for a quick break now & again, right?!

Well THIS can’t be good!!!

While I was in the Lillstreet kiln room tonight I saw this kiln shelf sitting in the corner. Another total meltdown!!! Seems to happen about once or twice a year… when a low-fire clay gets into a high-fire kiln. You never want to see this – or the note that goes with it!!! Always a sigh of relief when I can tell it is NOT one of my students!!!

Last night in my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class, one of my students wanted to do a bit of sgraffito carving… some creepy & scraggly trees just in time for Halloween! So what better way than to let her borrow my assortment of DiamondCore Tools to get her carving groove on!!!

As part of my time at Summer Camp, I find it important to teach the kids more than just how to make a projects or two. There are so many opportunities to share life lessons & more. So I find it a great chance & challenge to teach the kids about some famous artists & art history along the way… making it a “game” so they frequently don’t even realize it’s happening!!!

In fact, at the end of the week… we did a “socially-distant” game of MEMORY with the kids flipping over the cards to match up the artists… not the images… as most of the artists had two different artworks that they memorized. So they had to match the artist by name… with a lot of hand sanitizer in between turns flipping cards!!!! Good thing my flash cards are laminated!!!

So here’s a quick overview “POP QUIZ” of some of the artists & sculptors that my Summer Campers learned this summer.

HOW MANY OF THEM CAN YOU NAME??? First & last names please…

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So?… how many did YOU get right?!
Without the benefit of GOOGLE… or looking them up somewhere?
Not as easy as you would think, right?

But now many of my Summer Campers know a lot more artists than YOU!!!

My final week of camp… sadly, as all good things must come to an end!
But in one way or another… virtual or on-site.. the kids are going back to school soon.

So this was my final week of camp – another week of Wheelthrowing!
And by this time, several of them had already done a Wheelthrowing Camp over the summer, so it was a little easier for everyone. And they made some great little pots!

And then there was Greta, who asked if she could layer two different slip colors… and then carve through them! Of course I said YES!!! So she put down a layer of green slip, and then covered it with white slip. We tried to “quick dry” it a bit. And then she started carving through to reveal the color and the clay body below! I love when kids go a bit further with their projects… MORE IS MORE!!!

Even with kids!!!

And with that… the end of my Summer Camp 2020!

So much fun playing with all of the kids this Summer. I think it was so good for all of us to be able to work together face-to-face… errr, mask-to-mask… after so long being quarantined and sheltering-at-home. I know the parents were so thankful that we were there to teach the kids… and to give them an option to get them out of the house! Let alone, give the kids something fin to do this Summer. As practically everything else had been cancelled due to Covid-19.

To kick-off Chess Camp Week, we have a discussion about the chess set, playing chess and how we’ll be making a full set of chess pieces in one week! And that they need to come up with a theme for their set… who is battling who???

We then do some basic handbuilding demos… score, slip, attach, repeat!!! And that everything thicker than their pinky has to be hollow! And that any mess they make, they need to clean up…. also know as Gary’s Summer Camp Rule #3!

And then the fun begins… lots of handbuilding, lots of pieces!!!

While they’re building all of their chess pieces, we also start working on painting their chess boards. We use a large sheet of wood so they can draw out their grid and paint it all with acrylic paint. We do it in stages, one color at a time… letting the first color dry overnight before tackling the second color.

Once we finish making all of the chess pieces, we started painting all of them with colorful underglazes. Once they’re done painting, their pieces will be glazed by one of our Lillstreet Monitors with a clear glaze to make the colors a bit more vibrant & colorful.

As they’re painting, we do occasionally have some “breakage” along the way… typically where there was not any scoring & slipping. I try to tell them that they will fall apart if they’re not careful… but sometimes it takes a bit of breakage to prove the point. Luckily, they have time to build a few back-up pieces! And if you look closely, sometimes there’s no scoring & slipping to be seen… even though the kids “profess” that they did score & slip!!! But the evidence shows otherwise!

So here are a few of our “finished” sets…
drying and ready to be glazed with clear glaze and fired!
Sadly, we were running so close to the deadline on Friday, that I didn’t get a chance to get photos of all the sets. We were still building a few “replacement” pieces & painting with underglaze as the parents were arriving to pick up their kids!!!

THE SOLAR SYSTEM
With many of the planets represented… including a “lot” of Mercury’s as pawns???

COMIC BOOK SUPERHEROES
Sometimes the themes aren’t so apparent… but as long as the kids LOVE them, I’m okay with it! Like this one… if you look closely, there are some “logos” of the superheroes… and then birds are supposed to be Robins!… get it???

CATS VS. DOGS
Complete with fire hydrant & mouse pawns!

HATS
Yes, a bit of an “odd” theme… but he was excited about it. And had a perfect plan to make it all happen. Even when I made suggestions… he had a great rationale as to why he wanted it THIS way! So he made it his own way… which he loved, as he could “see the vision” even if I struggled a bit.

SOME SORT OF VIDEO GAME
Yes, frequently the kids want to make their theme based on a video game. And since I don’t do video games, I’m at a loss for words & ideas! Again… as long as he knew what he was making and had a good plan… I’m in!

And as part of Summer Camp Rule #3…
We need to make sure the kids lift by the sides of the jars of underglaze… or at least make sure that they lids are screwed on really tight. Because if we don’t… THIS happens!!! Luckily, the kids are ready to do the cleaning. It’s all part of “the fun” of Summer Camp with Gary!!!

This week was a combination of Wheelthrowing & Handbuilding. We work on wheelthrowing for the first couple days, and then switch to handbuilding on Thursday. Friday is reserved for glazing of their wheelthrown pieces, as well as finishing & slip painting of their handbuilt pieces.

But first… it’s the messy fun of WHEELTHROWING!!!
And many of them are excited to finally have a chance… as they need to be at least 8-years old to take a Wheelthrowing Camp at Lillstreet. Some of them have “waited” to be old enough to come take the wheel for a spin!

And then on Tuesday after camp… THIS happened…
This year all of our campers’ tools & clay were stored separately in Ziplock bags to keep everything safe. And then we roll this cart back & forth to class & storage afterwards. Imagine my surprise as I was turning the corner after camp… and three of the wheels popped off the cart!!! Good grief. Always something exciting to keep you on your toes!

On Thursday, we switched to handbuilding… so we had to have separate & dedicated slip containers for each camper so there would be no “sharing” of tools to contaminate anything. Luckily, I had a camper “volunteer” to fill the containers with slip for me!

So we worked all day Thursday making handbuilt dinnerware pieces & parts. A lot of making slabs by hand, draping them into Chinet plates as molds… and then “maybe”… just “maybe” a little of my stamping addiction may have rubbed off on them?!

Then on Friday they started painting their dinnerware sets with colored slips as they would be glazed with clear glaze the week after camp by one of our Lillstreet Monitors.

And as always… I keep encouraging the kids to do their fair share of the clean-up. And if that includes pushing all of the reclaim clay scraps through the grid, and then wiping it off, so be it. Someone’s got to do it, right?!