More Ceramics

As per usual, there is a lot that goes in to Ceramics. Along with learning how to throw on the wheel (pottery wheel. Making cups and bowls and such), we've had to make some things like cups and boxes and such with soft or hard slabs. Basically just experimenting with the clay and figuring out how it works. So part of our work was to glaze the things we made in the first few classes, but also to make sample tiles. The purpose of those is to test out the glazes we have, and how they react by themselves and with the clay slips we can put on the pieces before we fire them. So I made ten sample tiles, and I can't wait to see how they look when they come out of the kiln. I'll have a better idea of how to glaze things when I see the different colours they make.

So above here we have some of my items on one of my storage shelves (left) and a couple slabs with my tester tiles (right). Six different kinds of slips, ten different glazes, and they're all recorded in my sketchbook (pictured below).

Some glazed items.

Something else I had to do this past week was study for my art history midterm. There was a take home exam, which I'm not fully sure how I did on it, but the other half of the midterm was an in-class memorization test. I memorized 15 slides, which my teacher had posted online. I memorized each image, who the artist was, when the piece was made, what era or movement, and any other piece of information I could remember about each painting/sculpture/drawing/etc. In the test there were only eight slides, but I know I aced it. My memory is the thing I am most proud of about myself. So that was fun.

I cross-referenced slides on blackboard (our school's system of communication for teachers and students) that my teacher had posted, my notes I took during class, my huge 8-ton textbook, and a little bit of google, to get all of my information for each slide I had to memorize, and most questions I had to answer during my take-home exam. Which yes, was open book, so I wasn't technically cheating.