The hardest part of this class was coming up with ideas for projects. I was very indecisive and always wanted to do something I thought most people would not do. So I just kept thinking and thinking about it and I never really got anything done. Eventually I would sketch out an idea, but that would also take a long time because if I wasn't happy with the drawing, I wouldn't start on the project. One project I had a lot of trouble coming up with an idea was the animal head project. I really wanted to do a llama, but I had so much trouble drawing it out. Eventually, I just started molding the clay, but I wasn't able to get the shape right. So then I switched to making a lion, then a bear, then a platypus, and then eventually a raccoon.
I enjoyed working with plaster strips the most because they were very malleable and helped give shape to my dwelling project. One medium I wish I had been able to use was wax. A few people used wax and I thought that it would be really interesting to make something out of it. After a while, our class was banned from using wax, so I never got to make anything out of it. But I am not sure if any of the projects would have been good to use wax. I am hoping that next year I will be able to use wax on a project.
My most successful project was the animal head. I made a raccoon head out of clay. This project probably took the longest to work on because I was so indecisive on which animal I should do. For a few days I just sat in class and sketched out different animal heads so I could begin sculpting. The head started out as a llama, but changed to a lion, then a bear, a platypus, and then finally a raccoon. The last thing I did for the sculpting part was add texture with the needle tool to make fur. It was fired and then I used water color to paint it so it would look more real. The last thing I did was use plastic string for the whiskers.
If I had the chance to do one of the projects again, I would do the free project over. I made a lot of circles out of wire and then connected them to each other. I had absolutely no idea what to do for this project. I would use a completely different medium if I redid this. I'm still not entirely sure what I would use. Maybe I would probably go back to my first idea, which was making something out of pennies. I was thinking I would either glue them together to make something or I would use string or wire to connect them in some way and end up being something to hang from the ceiling.
One project I learned from was the vessel project. I had wanted to use clay, which was very surprising because I don't like using clay. I wanted to make a vase using the pottery wheel, but I didn't get a chance. But I did not want to make a pinch pot, so I was trying to figure out another way to use clay. As a warm up, my teacher had the class look through magazines and find a piece of art that interested us. I saw a vessel in the magazine I was looking through and I wanted to recreate it. I used a slab of clay and made it into a cone shape and scraped along the sides to add texture. I then used water color to paint it once it had been fired.
I learned from this project because it showed me that just because I was using clay to make a vessel or container, I didn't have to make a vase or a little pinch pot. You can do so many more things with clay when making a vessel.