The end of the year is here, and with it come the most intense project. Something inspired by an well known artist. As a painted, I'm biased toward artists I'm most similar to. I was thinking of Monet, since he is my favorite painter. However, I wanted a challenging artist. Something fun and pretty too.  
So I chose Vincent Van Gogh, specifically his Starry Night, the most well known of his paintings. 
So I created a bowl, where the inside was swirls and stars, and the outside was a tall spire from the painting, as well as some of the wind swirls and stars. All gently on the rim of the bowl, and the one swirl even creates a handle, for whatever reason you needed it. 
I again used a mold for the general shape of the bowl. Then I scored and slipped on the extra pieces for the top. I also made it textually different by carving in lines. The only problem was that the yellow glaze bled, and made it look like the star was melting (I'll just mix Van Gogh and Salvador Dali) 
Overall, I was proud of how this came out. I was also glad for the time I had in class. Thank you, Mrs. Maclay! (And to the other art teachers!) :D

​A food specific item. I guess the last thing I did was a little premature. However, now i got more food related items. And who doesn't like places to put MORE food??? 

So for this project, I made a pie (or cake) pan. I know there's a problem with portion control in today's society, so my pan is separated, and portioned into (mostly) even pieces. This isn't the only use for this pan though. I figured out that it would also serve as a vegetable platter, for candy, or to separate food on Thanksgiving. 

I didn't have any specific historical element that helped motivate me into making this. Only a well placed photo from Pintrest. 

As for making this piece, I used a short circular plastic tupperware for a mold for my pan. Than I used rolled coils to help separate the different pieces. I added handles on the side to help take it out of the oven, or to put it in the oven.  

The entire thing was glazed, and is food safe. So go ahead and cook in it, eat in it. Stick it in the dishwasher. But DO NOT use it as a Frisbee. That wouldn't be good for anyone. :) 

Normally, when you think of a lid, you think of the very top of something, to keep everything inside sealed. Perhaps when you think of a vessel, you think of something that doesn’t let anything in- or out.

For my project, I went outside the normal perspective of what people think. I instead made a lidded lantern. The entire lid has holes in it, to cast light out in the shape of a flower. The bottom part of it is simply a small plate almost. Enough to hold a candle or some other light source.

My inspiration came from accidentally finding a lantern photo from pintrest. I thought it would be something cool- if challenging to make.
A challenge it was! All of the spots I carved out are very tiny, which made it very hard. I also needed to keep the parts from breaking away from each other. I also planned for a much larger project, but instead had to reduce down the size, or i would've used too much clay. 

I glazed this, as opposed to using paint because of the possibility of fire going in the inside. I personally think my little lantern did well for a first time attempt at one, and it also serve its function as being  something able to cast out light! :D 

Originally when I started planning on making the slabs, I wanted to do life and death. Then I put words along the outside that meant life and death in the place where the tradition started.

This, however was too literal. I got my second idea from watching a TV show, Avatar. They have four different types of people in the show, and one bases all of its principle on yin and yang symbols. They have a pond that shows it with two fish. I wanted to show this in my slabs. Something old, but in a slightly more modern way. They have symbols on their back for ‘fire’ and ‘water’.  Just like the first slabs, I kept words around the outside. Only now, it’s Chinese for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ respectively.

The final product of the fish is that one is raised up from the tile, while the other is sunken down into the tile. Both of these concepts were relatively easy to do, the hardest- and longest- part was to create the words around the outside, and to make sure they were legible.
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They are glazed to look like water, and then with a watercolor finish that brings out the meaning of each fish.  Fire, and water. 

This technique uses two types of clay, and is relatively easy. you line two pieces of clay next to each other, then roll through a slab rolling machine, so they bond. you could do this to create an ombre effect by adding slightly increasing colors of clay.  provided we have two different colors of clay, this is one really easy way to complete an effortless ombre look for a piece!

This piece is also something simple. The roller out clay, and added colored slip on top of stencils, so when the stencils were taken away, you were left with a multicolored piece. This is also something very easy we can do in class, with the right colored slip. 

Our assignment was to create three cups out of three pounds of clay. These cups are supposed to be irresistible, making someone want to pick them up to be used.  Obviously, my ideas were a little different than what they were once they were finished.

My first cup was supposed to be an octopus cup, instead I liked the idea of making a star shaped cup, rather than the normal round cup. I made the cup using a pinch pot to start with, then I shaped the top to give it the appearance of being a star. For the glaze, i dipped the bottom of the cup, and let it run up the sides, giving it a running start! ;) 

The second cup was a slab styled cup. However, the slabs I used weren’t in the same fashion I originally tried to use. Instead of making a very square cup, I rounded the features to make a flower. This one is my favorite, since it turned out better than I expected. However, right before  it was fired, I had to quickly add a handle to this one… I had forgotten. The handle put on was still delicate, which worked with the design of the cup. The glaze on this was suppose to be very red, but instead turned out more like a dead flower, that's the only thing that detracts from this cup for me. 

The last cup was thrown on the wheel. Now, this was my first time throwing someone on the wheel, and my sketches didn’t take in count how bad I was at it… so, the cup that turned out was cute and tiny, one I added watercolor paint to, to give it a fun look. The watercolor paint has not been fired for now, but hopefully, the cup will still retain a cute painting style! 
 
All of the art I did shows off who I am as a person. I never completely follow something as I’m supposed to, and things can get a little wacky. However, I still think the cups turned out okay.  :D 

This pitcher is homemade by at Etsy artist. (Who didn't actually share their name.)  They made it look like the glaze was dripping by dipping the top of the pitcher into a bowl of glaze and turning it over. Then painting the handle and inside on their own. 
This is something I have tried to do, and let me tell you that it was not pretty. That's why I posted this, because for me, this is amazing, and something I have not figured out how to do. 

Maybe I haven't gotten the whole hang of this yet, but hopefully my opinion was amusing to you, or at least those walking cups were! 

~Art is not what you see, but what others make you see. Edgar Degas.