LET'S ROLL

SLAB FOOTED BOWLS

CERAMICS I

clay, glazes & oxides

We are seeing my beginning clay students first experience at rolling out the perfect slab.

Not so easy without a slab rolling machine like they have at the big schools in the sky,

just a plain old baking rolling pin.

It's hard to get them perfectly even.

The kids have a tendency to get one area too thick and the other too thin.

There is a trick,

 with pieces of wood on either side of the rolling pin that I haven't shown them yet,

 because I want to teach them to use their eyes to check slab thickness.

I don't like teaching my beginners to take the easy way out.

A bit of struggle is a good thing,

right?

Builds character  LOL

Like in the good old days!!

So I don't usually let my kids copy characters 

but this one was so well crafted by senior Tarun Desai,

that I didn't have the heart to tell him to start over.

This is more what I want the students to strive for,

there own designs like senior Casey Yoon & junior Gary Liu.

But it was junior Nathan Lam who really impressed me with his sculptural piece.

Note the subtle texture under the bowl area,

& the tiki men as feet?

Super cool piece Nathan!