Ceramics Workshop

Last week on the 17th of September I had my second workshop, which was ceramics. Ceramics is pots and other articles made from clay hardened by heat. This workshop was led by our instructor Debra who has a lot of experience with this type of art. The workshop started off with Debra going through some ground rules on all the equipment and other health and safety policies so that we would be safe and act sensible during our time in the ceramics room. After the rules were lay out on the table, Debra then learnt me and the rest of the class on how to role clay and get rid of any unwanted air bubbles in the clay itself. To make sure we didn't have any air bubbles we used a method called wiring where you slice the clay sideward's on to double check the clay. You want to avoid having any air bubbles in the clay as if it does when placing it in the kiln, and when heat is being placed to the clay heat will be trapped in the bubbles enabling it to destroy the clay work or in other matters blow up. If you are wondering a kiln is a furnace or oven for burning, baking, or drying, especially one for calcining lime or firing pottery. Once our clay was rolled out with no air bubbles Debs wanted us to place out hands on the clay and using modelling tool to mark around the edges for a group activity she had planned for us later that day, but sadly had no time at the end to get to it. After the hand carving, using the project brief we had been given for out art class we had to use our creative imagination to think of something to do with hands. I myself then decided to mould my own hand using plaster, taking about five to ten minutes to set just one side of my hand. I also did it to the other side of my hand. The detail that was in both moulds was remarkable they had all the texture in the moulds for instance the lines on the palm of your hands and nails also knuckles. Once both moulds had set and hardened up I started to place fresh pieces of clay into both the moulds and after placing the clay in all of the moulds I took away the extra pieces of clay that were not needed. I then took both clay moulds out of the plaster moulds and placed them together with slit. I wanted to make the hand look as realistic as I could get it. After seeing the results I decided to making another hand and cleaned both them up with cleaning and carving tools to get rid of any excess clay and to add further detail.