Clay Bowl Art Project

I would have died of happiness at the chance to use the potter's wheel when I was in high school, and am tickled I can give that opportunity to my students, now. The only way to learn the vocabulary on our pottery test is through hands on experiences. First wedge (kneed) the clay to make it consistent, elastic, and free of air bubbles. Then we mount and center the clay before opening the hole and pulling the walls.

For this assignment we were making bowls. I know that it is generally best to start with a cylinder when learning how to use the wheel, but we only had 2 weeks and 2 assignments, so we didn't have the time to dedicate to really mastering skills. When I took my first ceramic class in college, my first assignment was to spend 40 hours throwing cylinders...all of which were sent back to the clay pile.  But as an introduction to the wheel, a bowl seemed like a good solution, as it requires less skill for the top of things to flare out.

Most of our students chose to trim a foot when the clay was leather hard, which is another great skill to practice. I love how wet clay doesn't stick to the hardened clay very well, allowing us to use balls of wetter clay to ahere the upside down bowl to the wheel, before shaping and trimming off the exess clay.

Finally, students caved out patterns and designs on the outer surface of their bowls. I love how this assignment can be done by my students who are totally blind. They just needed to make sure their finger was on the inside of the bowl to gauge the width and keep from carving holes. After bisque firing, students glazed their pieces and we fired at cone 5, which, on the Georgia red clay, gave a very dark look, but the students were all happy with the results.