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.