PUSH, PULL, PINCH, SMOOTH

MOONBABIES

CERAMICS I

clay & oxides

This is the first serious assignment of the school year.

Create an abstract human figure by only pulling, 

pinching & pushing the clay around from one solid lump.

No allowing of the attaching of arms or legs.

They must be pulled down or outwards.

The kids go in with great trepidation but end up with the most elegant figures and torsos.

Of course they are also graded on craftsmanship & effort,

plus making the form 3-D rather than flat.

As well as trying for an expressive quality.

That's a lot,

but man oh man do they go for it!

What you will notice right off the batt is that we didn't glaze these to finish them off.

We stained them only with oxides.

This fabulous piece above by senior Lauren Kennedy was stained with Cobalt Carbonate.

To stain means to brush on,

 then to wipe off with a wet sponge.

It's up to the kids how much to wipe off,

a little or a lot.

Notice the directional movement of the sponge as senior Eunice Shim wiped her dynamic piece.

Super cool Eunice!

Eunice applied a combo. of Chrome Carbonate with Cobalt,

which gives a turquoise color.

 In this next one by sophomore Olivia Krueger,

she draws on some decorative incised lines for added interest.

She is staining with Red Iron Oxide.

Senior Sarah Oh also used incising on this very shapely torso.

Hard to tell from this pix,

but I think Sarah used Red Iron with Rutile Oxide to stain with.

And these last two expressive figures were done by senior Avanthi Dev,

and junior Renee Lin.

Avanthi is using Cobalt and Renee experimented with some combos.

She started with Cobalt on the head,

overlapped a bit of Chrome thru the bust,

then overlapped the stomach and legs with Rutile.

Pretty darn impressive for their first project of the year.

Looking forward to showing off more.