Reflects Me

This piece reflects me the most because it came from my own thought and design, nobody told you how to make your monster or what it should look like. Everything about my monster was something I'd thought of to create a hipster look to her. It's not very personal, but is sort of a reflection of me in the sense of some of her features. I created the swirl bun after a hairstyle I like to wear a lot. I also added the brown book in her right hand to depict a nerdy side. This artwork is all about showing a teenage hipster-type in the twisted style of a monster. I think she expresses the sort of style I go after in my artwork, usually bright, happy colors that vary with little details here and there that not everyone would catch. This was one of my favorite pieces I made.

Helped Improve The Most

This piece helped me improve the most within this class. I used coils to create the body and smoothed it all out as I went along building it. I knew how coils worked before making this piece but I'd never used them to create a smooth piece. I also painted a lot on this piece which I never did with another of my pieces. It had many little details I had to pay attention to. I definitely got the results I wanted, as it was supposed to depict an ancient vase I'd chosen and it came out looking very close to it, only slightly different in color. The painting came out even better than I thought it would, especially the swirls, and it makes me really proud to show this piece off.

My Biggest Challenge

This piece was most definitely my biggest challenge. As my final, it was very time consuming and had to be impressive to show off all I'd learned during my time in ceramics. My major obstacle to overcome was my time limit. Because I'd made the bottom trunk itself so big I had to pay extra attention to the leaves and layers to make sure it was all proportional. I had to come in a lot of extra periods to work on it. The texture was also a big challenge because I has to put it all over the handle and spout as well as the trunk and the under part of my lid. If I could do it again, I'd maybe put some texture on the leaves, because palm tree leaves are usually not smooth-edged. I felt really excited as to how it came out, I think the glazed trunk came out even better than I thought it would. The monkey is adorable, and I think it was probably my biggest success in this class.

My Favorite Piece

This was my favorite project to make because I got to use so many different techniques to make it my own sort of box. In making this I used the slab technique for the first time and coil technique for the swirls. I used my previous knowledge of slip and score to work with the slabs and coils to ensure proper stability. I also used a roller to put the swirly sort of texture on the slabs. When glazing, I decided to use a fun glaze on the inside and make the outside very elegant white with touches of the colors in the glaze to accent the white. The glaze I used had reddish-pink and light orange bits so I used a light orange glaze of the swirls and the reddish-pink on the dots and bow. I felt really proud of this piece when it came out, and I think it my first ceramics piece that came out very much like how I'd imagined it. I'd say it was a huge success!