ANOTHER FAVORITE

CARVED GLASS PLAQUES

CERAMICS I

clay, glass shards, glazes

Here is another assignment the kids love,

especially as they wait to see their finished products coming out of the kiln.

Let's take a look.

Senior Ashley Iseri displayed some of the best designs and craftsmanship in the class.

Sadly she was a senior, 

so I wasn't able to work with her again in Ceramics II.

But she promised me she'd try to take another clay class in college.

Another outstanding student,

junior Ylia Madayag,

did this striking lion above.

And best of all,

she is back again this year in Ceramics II challenging herself, 

and growing in her artistic skills.

Can't wait to show you her work that she has begun!

Junior Samuel Kim,

who never liked anything he made,

finally created something he loved so much that he made two of these.

YES!

And senior Eunice Shin blends her two countries in this very patriotic work.

Bravo Eunice!

Miss you girlie.

Senior Vinaini Jayasinghe,

a beautiful dancer in her Indian culture,

carved out an image of one of her difficult dance moves.

Very cool Vinaini!

Sadly junior Sarah Oh had a revolting development during the glaze firing

in this very beautiful piece.

Sometimes when the students are rolling out their clay for a piece,

 they accidently pick it up incorrectly and stress an edge.

Or when they roll out the clay they roll one section thinner than the other.

Either or both of these things could cause the work to crack during the last firing.

Both Sarah and I and her tablemates were devastated when we saw what had happened.

But because it was such an exceptional piece it still went out on display.

This accident also happened to senior Brian Aguirre-Hernandez.

His crack wasn't quite so large so that the glass shards melted and filled in the crack a bit.

But again,

what a shame,

such a beauty Brian.

And we end with sophomore Julia Stein.

She came up with something completely different.

She made two pieces that were meant to  be displayed together

which I felt was such a neat idea.

I'm hoping this work will inspire this next years group of students to give it a try.

RECYCLE THOSE GLASS SHARDS

CARVED GLASS PLAQUES

CERAMICS I

clay, glass shards & glazes

Start saving your colored glass bottles,

wrap them in two layers of newspaper,

and lay on concrete and take a hammer to it.

Oh yeah,

put  on protective eyewear!

The only kind of glass that doesn't work is windshield glass,

it won't melt completely down in the kiln. 

I recycle lots and lots of glass every year.

I also take in donations from stained glass artists.

And when I still don't have all the colors the kids want,

I go spend a bit of money and buy recycled pieces from my local Stained Glass Store.

They charge me by the pound. 

This is a favorite assignment in this first year class,

because it's always a delightful surprise to see how the glass melts and mixes in the kiln.

One of the most stunning works to come out was made by senior Archana Vancheswaran.

(above)

She will be forever known as the Class of 2016's Mud Woman

because the clay loved her.

Besides being a beauty,

this work by junior Annie Oh really captures an expressive attitude.

This year we are seeing a lot of luscious turquoises being used in the plaques.

Junior Leon Tong used it above in his Superman logo,

and below senior Aaron Chough has used it as well.

I want to give a special shout out to Aaron,

he is at West Point right now going thru Boot Camp,

and I hear it's pretty bad.

My heart goes out to you Aaron.

Good Luck!

The lovely and perfectly crafted crane above is the work of junior Sarah Chang,

one of my favorite students from this last year.

She was one of my hardest working students and as sweet as could be.

Really looking forward to seeing you again Sarah.

Sure hope you'll be able to fit at least 2 of my classes in next year.

Two of the best athletes at our school,

juniors Ben Barnett & Edward Malacon,

carved these fun balls.

I think it's really cool how Ben's glass melted so that it looks like he has highlights and shadows.

Both boys also painted black glaze onto the top edges of the carved out areas to enhance them.

These next two very different birds were done by junior Andy Hu,

and senior Tarun Desai.

Tarun's was an especially challenging one to pull off with all the ins and outs of his shape,

and I really like how Andy's glaze broke over his piece.

One of our amazing Valedictorians, 

senior Frances Lee,

created this fabulously difficult TEDX piece.

One of the things I loved the most about Frances is that she always challenged herself in the class,

always gave me the best she had.

That will take her a long way.

The perfectly crafted work inspired by Star Wars was built by junior Gary Liu.

Love the way the glass melted together.

I believe he used a combination of yellow, gold and brown.

Gary is another one I hope will be back next year.

The clay loved him.

Another student the clay loved was junior Sarah Woo.

Everything this young woman created she did with all her heart.

Here is another one headed into a major in Art.

And this cutie patootie was done by junior Cathy Huang.

She was the young one who built the narwhal coil pot.

If you look closely,

 you will see the different shades of blue and turquoise Cath used to fill up her carved out areas.

She,

 like many of the others,

 painted glaze along her edges to pull the whole piece together.

Fantastic job all of you!

FAVORITE ASSIGNMENT

CARVED GLASS PLAQUES

CERAMICS I

clay, glass shards and glaze

Probably one of the favorite assignments of the year 

are these Carved Glass Plaques done by my beginners.

They are quite a treat for the eye!

This first one was made by senior Nikita Govind,

and I'm thinking she was already dreaming of summer vacation.  :)

I really like how senior Arun Ramakrishnan combined both glaze and the melted glass shards 

for his super hero piece.

 I felt it was one of his best works this year. 

Great design Arun!!!

Senior Payal Morari was the only one who thought to fracture her design...

and senior Ankita Batra brings us stunning color combined with black glaze on her bird.

Filling all those tiny craters with glass shards took a lot of patience which Ankita has.

And junior Sitara Puliyanda cleverly hides her first name in her piece amongst the leaves.

She also has thought to move the green from light to dark...

giving a dimensional effect.

Impeccable craftsmanship and lovely designs

are the hallmark of all of junor Christine Kim's works,

like the rose above.

And let us end with senior Laarnie Barcelon's highly remarkable piece here.

Besides carving areas away for her glass shards to melt into, 

she has also sculpted in bas relief her cat woman face.

She has brought in a bit of nail polish to achieve her reds.

Finding a red glaze in cone 5 is pretty difficult.

A little bit easier at cone 10.

So seniors...

take a ceramics class when you get to college so you can fire at cone 10.

It's the best!!!!

They've got the money, the kilns and the glazes  :)

A PEEK INSIDE THE KILN

Even though I haven't been showing off the work of my Ceramics I kids lately, 

doesn't mean they aren't working hard.

here is a peek at their Carved Glass Plaques being loaded into the kiln.

Wait till you see the final results!!

Coming soon.

WooHoo!!

:)

Glass & Clay

CARVED GLASS PLAQUES

CERAMICS I

clay, glass shards, glaze

One of the projects my beginning clay kids look the most forward to are these Carved Glass Plaques.

It is a bit more expensive to do this assignment because of all the glass colors you need, so I go to a stained glass store and buy up all their broken pieces for a lot less money.

Then I have my T.A.'s break it down even more to small shards and we use it for this assignment as well as mosaics in my 3-d class.

I try to encourage the kids to come up with original designs but some of them are not confident enough in their drawing skills to do that, so you will see some designs you recognize.

This first beauty was created by senior Minette Tsang.

One of my personal favorites above was made by junior Ju Eun Lee.

Her design was especially difficult to carve out but she did a terrific job.

This striking floral design was done by very talented senior Jocelyn Kim.

Her color choices were exceptional!

I love how in this apple senior Darren Fong used both glass and glaze and allowed them to overlap a bit to get a super exciting marbleized look.

Senior Neha Jain did this fun design above, and senior Karen Cheng did the lovely rose design below.

Junior Erin Hsiao created this gorgeous bird above while junior Tiffany Chu made the pretty turquoise goblet below.

You can see in Tiff's piece how the white glaze is overlapping with the turquoise glass for a lighter shade of turquoise.

Very cool!

Junior Nicholas Tudor did the perfectly crafted rose and gave it as a gift to my lovely assistant, alumni Alyssa. 

And this rendition of Starry Night was done by one of the nicest young men in my Ceramics class, Jonathon Xue.

Senior Derrick Lin, one of my all time favorite students, made the castle above.

Notice how he manipulated the glass to go from darkest blue on the bottom to lite blue on top.

Nice Derrick!

This beautiful, original design was made by senior Priya Sheth.

Notice the care she took in glazing it.

Some areas are stained with red iron oxide, next to carved out ares with glass.

Love the contrast!

Senior Lacey Thach did this impeccably crafted floral design above, and we end with junior Stephanie Kim carving and glazing the superman logo.

Fantastic job all of you, and congrats to so many students from the class being featured on the blog at one time.

YES!!!

Carved Glass Plaques - Student Work

A favorite Ceramics I assignment are these Carved Glass Plaques.  The kids love filling their carved out areas with glass shards that the heat in the kiln melts down for them.  Lately they've also been getting into mixing colors and values for a more dimensional effect like sophomore Abigail Kim has done above.  Also notice at the top that she has pierced a hole in the clay wall for hanging her work.

This very striking work above was made by junior Shamara Mustafa, and below we have 2 sweet pieces by seniors Brendon Lim and Kevin Luong.

I really like how senior Martin Yang is mixing values and colors with his glass shard choices below.

And junior Nathan Chou has done the beautifully crafted heart below.

This next one has a really elegant shape, reminds me of a flame, and I'm pretty sure it was created by senior Daniel Tsai.  And the glass mixing worked out  well.

But my favorite was done by two girls for extra credit, junior Justyn Li and Abigail Kim from above.  It was made way before we did the carved plaques, and it's so much more alive with dimensional elements, and contrast between the glass and stained areas.  Plus by adding the beads, that really pulls the piece together.  I think that Ms. Hall (one of our English teachers) bought the piece at Open House.  I'm going to use this one as inspiration for next year's plaques. 

Carved Glass Plaques - Student Work

A favorite assignment of the Ceramic I kids are these carved plaques.  They start by rolling out a slab of clay, and then very carefully carving away the areas where they want to melt glass into.

This top one was done by senior Shaun Pak of Bob Marley.  I really like how he used multiple glass colors in the face and how they melted into each other.  The other areas he stained with red iron oxide.

Below we have this very pretty piece by sophomore Ann Munoz.  She also allowed several colors of glass to melt together for an eye catching work.

Here senior Tim Chai made this stunning piece and really controlled his glass placement resulting in a very cool landscape scene in the background.  Way to go Tim!!

And below it's senior Michael Marin (see Michael, told you I was going to post your work  :) with his Live, Love, Laugh piece.  Check out the cool placement of his warm color scheme.  And carving letters like this is especially difficult.  

And lastly we have senior Opal Patel.  She has done many outstanding pieces this year, and I've showcased her several times.  What I really enjoyed about both Michael and Opal, is that they often finished their work early so that they had time to make many extra credit works.  Thanks all of you for these beautiful pieces to display.