Art Dump part 1

Sorry, no clever title this time.......
By popular demand (or because Amy keeps chewing my ass about it) a run down of what I've been working on this semester in my hand-building class.
*warning, another long post*
Just to briefly explain what it is this class is about, this is the application of basic building techniques used in clay. For example, coil form, pinch form, hard slab and soft slab. With those, you can construct any type of sculpture of your choice. Now with that out of the way, let us begin......

Fluted Ramen bowl with design to hold chop sticks (sorry for the crappy photos^^;)
This bowl was made using the pinch form, basically it started from a ball of clay about the size of a lemon. With out getting into too much detail you keep pinching out the sides till you get the thickness of the walls and the over all shape that you desire. Also if you are wondering about the glaze, part of this class is to introduce you to glazing history/application/techniques. For this bowl I went with a glaze called "Flambe Blue". If I had better lighting you can see that from the bottom it's a dark blue that starts to fade into a brilliant purple at the rim. Inside I used a stain(bernard), which in hindsight, was a mistake. It did not combine well with the glaze thus came out dirty looking. Oh well, lesson learned. hehe

Round Ramen bowl with same chop stick design:
As with the Fluted bowl, that is was pinched out with the same size of clay ball. Obviously the only difference is the shape. The glaze on this is called "Breaking Blue". Probably my ALL time favorite glaze. Since it has a high concentration of iron in it, during the firing process, the extremely high temperatures of the kiln cause a reaction of the metals inside the glaze to separate. In this case the iron typically likes to separate usually making very intricate and unique designs on the clay body. Thus getting a multi-colored picece. Again I also experimented with a Bernard stain on the inside that looks like shit and will never be attempted again. lol
As you can see I'm not a potter and probably never will be, nothing against the art, it's a beautiful one, but it's something that really doesn't speak to me or helps me really express myself as an artist.
Now for one of my pride and joys.......

I'm sure you are probably wondering what in the hell this thing is. Or you might have already thought it was a vase of some sort. lol Actually you aren't to far from the truth on that. This is actually an African Udu drum, which were originally fashioned from water jugs. This larger one I made (also made a smaller one that's currently being fired) was constructed using the coil technique. I purposely choose an Udu for this assignment cause in Africa they actually used the same technique, plus I've always wanted one, being the percussionist that I am. :) BTW, it's also playable. If you have never heard one of these then you REALLY should. The sound that resonates from these vessels are truely one of a kind. Oh and on he outside I used Red Iron Oxide stain and Celedon glaze on the inside, also a combination I'll never use again.

Now finally onto some pieces that I'm really proud of (so far....)
Geometric Tea PotThis is a good example ofwhat happends when you don't properly bond sperate pices together when they are still wet. During the bisque firing the handle of the pot popped off, luckily for me it didn't explode into a million pices. So I'll take a broken handle. :D
Time to pick a glaze.Breaking Blue it is!
Glaze in bowl with test tile showing the result (hopfully lol). Time to get glazing!
Violla! And just like that, it's comeplete and ready to dry on the racks in queue from the next glaze firing. lol Ok so I might have skipped the application step, but you wouldn't have really missed much and I would rather have not gotten glaze all over the camera. It's quite messy. :)

But what I mean by so far is that, as you can see, I still have yet to see the turn out on the final glaze firing. As I'm sure you've gather from my comments on my previous peices, not always will something turn out they way you'd expect it too. So with these, they could be complete works of art, or complete shit.......
Let's hope for the former. lol
Anyways, this first group of photos was taken to chronicle the steps of glazing a bisqued fired clay body, to application of the glazes it's self. The tea pot was constructed using the hard slab technique.
I've very much looking forward to seing how this one comes out for various reasons. One, because if the many flaws in it, so I'm rather curious if it'll make it through the final firing. And two, my professor has already given me high praise on the design . I'd rather not dissapoint him beacuse of the shotty craftsmanship. If all else fails, I'll just make another one.....

Well, I WAS going to post some photos of my final piece. But because I think so much of it, it deserves it's own post, oh and cause it's getting late and I'm getting tired and about to do a face plant into my keyboard any second. lol So stay tuned!
Oh yeah, Happy Mothers Day!!! (especially to you Amy!) :D

-Chris