HS Demo

All day I was at the Custer County High School in Miles City. This is the 2nd Fall that I have done an all day wheel throwing demonstration and Raku presentation. A recruitment of sorts. We seem to have no trouble filling our 12 and under art classes. But bringing in the High School participants can be like pulling teeth. In an attempt to amp it up, we started offering a 7-week Raku Fired Pottery Class. Half of the sessions will be hand building and half of the sessions will be wheel work. At the beginning of the classes I showed a slide show of the outdoor Raku kiln being fired and gave a history of the Americanized version of Raku Pottery. I also brought in a few sample pots and discussed the glazes and how certain effects were achieved. I moved over to the wheel and demonstrated throwing a pot. After four Art 1 classes I had to loosen it up a little (for me) and decided to throw a pot blindfolded. It was a great day. The students were all very attentive and seemed really interested in the clay. I probably visited with 100+ students. Hopefully that is enough to fill our after school Raku class.

Watercolor at the Villa

I was at the Friendship Villa nursing home this afternoon. We worked on our sketching and watercolor skills today. I was reading up on Cezanne and how he really tried to draw through the subjects. Being that if there was multiple pieces of fruit, he would draw the ones in front and in back in full. That would be a sketch. As he went into the color/value portion of his composition he would bring certain objects forward and push others back.
Using shoes stacked on top of one another, I tried to get the residents to draw the geometric shapes of the shoes and to draw through the shoes to the other shoes.

VA Hospital

I was at the the VA community living this morning. These residents are fairly mixed as far as their abilities are concerned. There can be a lot of young people and older people working/living together. We worked on a clay project that was a slab built mug. I had pre-cut the slabs into 4.5 by 11 inch pieces of clay. At about 1/4" to 3/8" thick. I brought along a bowl full of stamps and other texture materials. I demonstrated pattern, and emphasized keeping the stamp in rows and columns. I very symmetrical design. One resident placed the butterfly stamp all over the slab. It created a lot of movement on the slab and was very catching. I am going to fire these mugs to cone 10 and use the Reitz Green glaze. It breaks very nice at the edges. I brought a small vase that was glazed the same, it really emphasized to the residents the importance of stamping, patterns and how the glaze will work well with the textured pieces.