Pottery

:-)
Had been to a pottery class some weeks ago. The class was for 3 weekends. 4 hours each on saturday and sunday.

Was a very nice experience. especially since the lovely mix of people I met. An architect, software engineers, MBA, a young mommy, a to-be mommy, fashion designer, potter by profession, college student, gynaecologist.

The first day, we just learnt the theory. What are the different types of clays that can be made and what are their maturation temperatures. What are the uses of various types of clays. What are the tools to use. How do you fire earthenware. I intend to put this up on one of my next posts.

The next day we made small human faces. different expressions, hairstyles, etc. curly hair was the best to make. press clay through a flour sieve and collect the hair from the bottom side and gently stick it to the head of the face. I also made Pingu the Penguin and a tree that others also named as brocolli, mushroom and cauliflower..We were shown how to make ganapati, and coil pottery. I made neither. was too engrossed with the faces..

The next weekend we started with slab pottery. Many animals can be made from slab pottery. Not just from slab pottery, but by just rolling clay in various forms a lot of animals can be made. Tortoise, elephant are the easier ones. Our Sir showed us a lovely jute-like earthen sack with a small monkey's face on it. flatten clay over a jute cloth (for the texture) with a rolling pin. fold the rolled clay into a sack. Decorate it - we decorated with a monkey's face. We also made a tiny elephant and a tortoise. bother came out lovely.We made sheep out of a slab. flatten clay. put a newspaper ball in the centre. roll the clay over the newspaper roll to make it a hollow ball. remove excess clay. beat it till it becomes oval. then stick head, legs, ears of the sheep. Then the fleece. the sheep turned out quite nice.We placed a pipal leaf over flattened clay and pressed the leaf with our rolling pin. The impression of the leaf came onto the clay. Then we made ganapati on it. This looked nice. But my piece broke in the kiln..so me sad about that. We made delicate earthen jewelry. It was lovely. We learnt wheel pottery also in the week. We worked on the wheel in turns. When one was learning jewelry or making the sheep, someone else sat on the wheel to turn out lovely pots and vases. It was tough. But I managed to make around 6 pots though they turned out wobbly and nearly flew out from the wheel once or twice...

If possible I will photograph whatever earthenware I made and post it here. Many of my pieces broke in the kiln or while travelling by richshaw to the pottery class. So I am trying to re-do a lot of stuff. Wonder when all that would get done..

In the next weekend, we made sculptures. Mine turned out quite good. But by the time I took it home and brought it back for firing in the subsequent week, it was broken to a hundred pieces. I had made a man with spectacles and a gandhi topi sitting on the floor hugging his knees. And a woman sitting crosslegged folding her hands as if in meditation. The woman didnt have eyes and lips. I was scared to do it in case I spoiled the strength of the woman's figure.I had got all the feelings I wanted to show in the two sculptures. The man was weak and old. The woman was very strong and confident. Pity the sculptures didnt make it to the kiln.

:-) I enjoyed myself thoroughly. I hope to continue pottery. :-)

bye for now.