Final Projects

 

Each year, I allow my students free reign (almost) to learn what they want to learn. They can look back on a favorite medium and pushing it further or taking it a different directions. They can think about something that we didn't learn about and design a project for themselves to learn it. Whatever their idea is, they need to write a proposal detailing the scope of the project. This includes the number of pieces, the medium, the size, the subject matter, and it also gives an narative on why this idea is meaningful. Occasionally I have to tell students their proposal is too ambitious or not ambitious enough, but generally, they get accepted, and students are able to devote a week to their own project.

This year, I had students who wanted to learn how to make some origami animals, Another wanted to learn how to draw useing 2 point perspective. One student wanted to make a hand puppet and another wanted to do watercolors using primary colors and geometric shapes. I have to do one-on-one instruction for the few who are learning entirely new skills, but thankfully there are enough woring independently while stretching prior knowledge, that I can to focus on one student at a time.

Making Clay Candlesticks

 Jack jumped over a candlestick. It wasn't a candle, it was the thing that holds the candle: a candlestick. It wasn't until about 15 years ago, that I realized, like everyone around me, that I was calling tapered candles, candlesticks, and calling candlesticks candlestick holders.

No matter what you call it, it's a fun ceramic project for people learning to work on the potter's wheel. I'd never made them before and thought I should l get a lot of practice in before teaching my students as a possible project or fundraiser. It's not to hard to make a cone with a little cup on top. There's a little trick in keeping that cup centered as you squeeze the rest of the clay up into a stick form or, if you want to be fancy, create some bulbs along the way, but it's doable. For me getting them all the same size took a little effort. I was using a wide handle to measure them, but the porcelein didn't strink as much as I thought and the ended up being a little too big.  This wasn't as problematic as the fact that all of them blew up in the kiln. 

Back to the drawing board. I realized that I needed to hallow out the base, even though none of the tutorial videos I watched, mentioned this step. Once the sticks were leather hard, I tried to trim them on the wheel, but they were far to tall and wobbly for this to work. I ended up just holding it with my hand and using carving tools to hollow out the underside, so that the walls were about the same size and gradually lead into the thinner part of the stick.

Success! Every one in the second batch survived the firing, and, since I used the actual candle to measure the size of the cup at the top of the candlestick, they fit. I'm glad I didn't wait to do this with my student.