What we are using

14 March 2009

Handmade Pottery

CC has finished her pottery class. Here are her creations.
A Bird House.


An Appalachian Face Jug.


A Coil Bowl.


The other side of the coil bowl.


A Fish Bowl.





She loved the class and learned a lot of great techniques for working with clay. The art school doesn't allow kids to start using a pottery wheel until they are 10 so she has a couple of more years to learn about art and clay before she gets to move up into that.

The Appalachian Face Jug is really interesting. It is based on folk art from the 1700s in North Georgia and the Carolinas. It is believed that it originated from African devil jugs. I think you could make them out of an air drying clay and use them in art project while studying the Appalachian area or as a project while studying slavery. I found a lesson plan for teaching them with real clay that needs to be fired like CC did, but you could easily use air-drying clay then paint them and get great results.

For the fish bowl, the kids were instructed to design a dish with an animal attached to it. They had to draw it on paper then transfer it to three dimensions. CC enjoyed this lesson. The teacher kept moving around the room showing kids how to get their ideas into the clay not telling them what to do. It is an important difference.

The bird house is her favorite piece. The top is attached by a string so that you can easily clean it out. She can't decide if she would rather display it as art or find a place outside to put it and see if a bird family moves in.

She loves her coil bowl. She actually eats breakfast out of it each morning now and then washes it by hand, puts it to dry, then puts it back on its display shelf. In her next pottery class, she'll be making a full set of functional dishes.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I love the face jug. We see lots of those around these parts. My Fi loves clay too. Thanks for posting the pix.

Ruskin said...

Those are fantastic. I particularly like the bird house too. It makes me think of 'the Magic School House'.
Hand-made clay objects are particularly special nowadays when everything is so bland and out of a mould.

Pottery Collector said...

I love pottery, the face jug is really cool. I just found this site:

http://jtpotteryusa.com/gallery.htm

They have great hand made pottery I just ordered a vase and can't wait to get it.

Pottery Collector said...

Here is a clickable link
jtpotteryusa.com/gallery.htm