For Those Second Graders

This post is specifically for Catherine Ware and her students that I met last week.  I promised some pictures of the next steps on finishing up the cup and bowl that I made when I was with them.

Because it is not as interesting, I will start with the bowl.  

I trimmed the bottom a little bit.  This makes the bottom of the bowl nicer and neater than it was when I first made it. I use a bat covered with foam for trimming bowls.  The foam cushions the rim of the bowl so that it is not damaged and keeps the bowl from slipping around when I work on it.  There are special tools for trimming off extra clay from the bottoms of pieces.  The clay cuts off in long pieces that look sort of like ribbons.   

There was more to finishing the mug.  

First, I cut it off the bat and smoothed out the edge on the bottom of it.

Then I worked on the handle.  

To join two pieces of clay, you start by "scoring" the surfaces that need to be joined.  Scoring is a fancy way of saying that I scratched it up with my needle tool.  The deeper the scratches are, the more secure the joint is where the two pieces come together.

Then I put "slip" on the scored end of the handle.  Slip is just liquid clay.  It is slimy and gross, but it does the job.

Then I pressed the handle on the cup.  The slip pushes into the places that I had scored the pieces and really holds them together like glue.

Here is what it looks like before I stretch the handle into the shape that I want it.

This is what it looks like after I have stretched it out.  To make this happen, I hold the cup in my left hand.  I get the handle wet and I wet my right hand and gently stretch and pull it down until I like the way that it looks.  I want it thin enough that it looks nice but not too skinny so that it looks like it doesn't match the cup.  I like big, substantial handles on my mugs, so I start with a pretty big piece of clay.  I can cut off any that it extra if the handle is too long once I get it stretched out the way that I want. I was the only one in the studio the day that I made this handle or I would have asked someone to video that part.  It's kind of cool to watch.

Finally, I bend the handle down and press the bottom of it on to the bottom of the mug.  After that, it has to dry.

The mug and the bowl are both drying now. I will bisque fire them soon and then glaze them and fire them again.  For the second time in just a few days, I wish I had a nice orange glaze that I could use.  Orange is a hard color to find. 

I liked the design of the mug that I made when I was at Graham School so much that I made some more later that afternoon when I was back in the studio.