Intermediate Ceramics

Four weeks ago I was asked to do a five week Intermediate Ceramics class for adults after a tutor became unavailable. I'm so proud of the ladies on this course, they've thrown incredible work, glazed it and this week we experimented with slab building teapots. They've all worked at different speeds but this week even the most timid members were speaking ceramic!

They were all "This clay is leather hard" and "I need to turn this foot" and being all proficient and I had to choke back being a proud teacher and let them get on with it.

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I used this lesson plan from Ceramics Arts Daily, my hand building knowledge is mostly sense now so it was useful to use a resource that laid it out simply again.

As next week will be their last class, one of their aims for the course was to learn how to throw tall objects. Each week I've offered them the chance to throw with 1.5kg of clay, getting them to think about how they can use bulkier pieces. I'm going to turn and fire their remaining work this week so we'll do a lot of underglazing and glazing but I also want them to go for it and throw something tall, I'm thinking 3kg? I might watch some tutorials on throwing large scale and have a go myself since I like to stay small and thick (just like me?) before I torture them with such a challenge.