Ready for Day Two at the SCHAUMBURG PRAIRIE ARTS FESTIVAL. The sky isn’t as pretty today, but art still is! We’re all here from 10:00am-5:00pm today. Swing by if you get a chance!… at the Robert O. Atcher Municipal Center just off of Schaumburg Road.

Well lookey here.. one of my advanced beginner students Michelle has been working hard to make a nice plate… and by golly, she sure did!!! Of course I LOVE everything about it. Not that I had much “influence” on her… but it sure is a great plate Mish Dish!!!

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Natural textures along the lakefront.

Admiring what the soda mixture does to the kiln bricks over time… loving the textures & colored patina effect. Too bad it’s not good for the longevity of the kiln. Beautiful, yet slowly destructive as it “eats away” at the brick!

A little “urban decay” on weathered wood along the CTA train line…
seems oddly fitting for another gray & gloomy day.

To celebrate the last class of our LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class, we threw another potluck. And I decided to make a cheesecake… with homemade hot fudge… on a handmade platter. I considered it my own personal “throwdown.”

Spent a lot of time stamping… and stamping… and stamping. Adding some texture to my latest batch of bowls… soon to have HOLES. As these will quickly be turning into berry bowls!

Painting more flashing slip accents… this time on some textured square vases!
They’re currently laying down… but once this side sets-up a bit, I’ll stand them up
and slip paint the other side which has a different texture “picture” all together.

So after choosing their favorite tile, and getting their FREE BONUS CYLINDER…
let the surface decoration inspiration challenge begin! How to translate their first “tile” design onto a round cylinder form??? And here’s what they came up with…

Donna

Susan

Jacob

Molly

Claire

Dave

Tatiana

And then our TOP TWO winners!!!

Taylor

Ryan …who got huge kudos for tackling a carved project like this WITHOUT any sharp tools!!!

And then they thought they were done… happy to be done with that ONE TOOL.
But they weren’t. There was still one more trick up my sleeve!

After they had textured their tiles in class… I gave them their next challenge.
I told the that they needed to “choose their favorite tile” of the nine and get rid of the rest. hey could save them or squish them up… either way. And then I told them that with that SAME ONE TOOL and that one chosen tile, they had to translate their two-dimensional tile design onto a three-dimensional cylinder. And they had thirty minutes to complete the challenge!

A quick sense of panic swept across many faces, as they didn’t think they could throw a fresh cylinder and still stamp it when it was freshly-0thrown-wet in the time frame. So then I told them not to worry… as I had already pre-thrown the cylinders for them and they were already dried to the “wetter-side-of-leatherhard” which would be perfect for this challenge!

So again, they had thirty minutes to translate their flat tile design onto their cylinders!

Ummm… carving without a sharp tipped needle tool??

Yes, Ryan broke the tip off his tool and found that there was a thin wire inside
that he could cut with. A very short, very NOT sharp piece of wire!

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