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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Slab Wraps - Student Work

Going back to my Beginning Clay kids again for their very elegant slab wraps. It is a quiz with clay, where they need to follow very specific directions to make a vase form and only have one day to do it in. They begin with a huge slab of clay that they put a lot of stamping, cylinder rolling, and textural paddling into, then they thump and drag it on the cement outside my door. This stretches the clay and the textures into very pleasing shapes. Then they mold the huge slab over a rolling pin, blow dry the clay so it holds the curved form, take it off roller and continue to roll it up into a vase form with overlapped edges. They must also attach a base and do some additional stamping or applied decorations along the seam. What they end up with are very organic, elegant vase forms. At least most of them do LOL. These were my favorites this year. The top one was done by senior Raffaello Sampaga, and look at how beautifully he glazed it! These two were made by senior Matthew Ramos and junior David Hyun. David has been doing a lot of experimenting with steel findings and nails in his clay pieces. Steel is about the only thing that won't melt at cone 5 (2150 degrees F.), the glaze temp I fire to. Very cool pieces boys!

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