Student projects, and blogging is a pain in the butt

I'm really not so great at this whole daily blogging thing. It's all well and good to upload a few pics from my cell phone everyday. But to actually write something, something that is thought out and is something of quality... Well, maybe i'm just shooting a bit high. With Maddy around, a lot of my typing is one handed these days, and therefore fairly rushed. Or, its done on my iPhone, which is a royal pain to type at any length with. Oh well. This is still better than posting one or two sparse blog posts a month. I just miss the days of actually enjoying the writing part of blogging. I really do love to write, and if you look at my first several blog posts on this blog (look at this wordy crap!), they were insanely lengthy with no pics at all. One day, I'll find a balance. In the mean time, it's just nice to have a record of what's going on.

My teaching session is over, so I get a week off before the new one starts. I'm hoping to get the surfaces done on all the bottle forms I've thrown recently over the break. I think I have six in all.

Check out some of the member work from this session! I've got some very talented people in my classes.

Connie's dragon. 

Mike B's pineapple vase. I had no part in helping with this project - this was all Mike!

Shonda is making a series of 3 beavers. Pretty adorable, right?

The 12" challenge

Class challenge inspired by another pottery blog whose students set this challenge for themselves. I can't remember where I saw it, so if you're reading this and you just wrote a blog post about your students doing this, let me know so I can give you credit!

Turns out this challenge wasn't as easy as I thought! I threw one 12" bottle on Tuesday first try out of red clay, but it was pretty wobbly. Yesterday I used porcelain, and I've always struggled with getting much height from porcelain. My first try flopped, but I got it the second time around. Both the other students managed to succeed with at least 12 inches as well. Mike B has been throwing for years longer than I have, so he did the challenge quite nicely. It's humbling having students who are better throwers than I am! I'm looking forward to getting to that point where I've got 15 years experience under my belt.