Day 1 : Exploring pinching, coil and slab techniques

Today was the first day of a ceramics course I started and the beginning of my journey in ceramics.

I was greeted with the warm, earthy fragrance of red clay and the slightly humid environment of the pottery studio. 

What an oddly comforting feeling that was, it felt like a warm hug, soothing and refreshing.

After being introduced to the basics of ceramics and their building techniques the class was given the simple task of using the 'pinching' method (pressing a ball of clay using your fingers) to create a vessel.

But only if it were as simple as it sounded. 😂

After painstakingly smoothing the sides and cautiously pressing the walls to make them thin and even enough, I was able to transform the lump of clay into a fairly large flat bottomed dish.

It was nowhere near perfect, but the feeling of being able to hold with my hands something that was, some minutes ago, merely a fleeting thought in my head felt satisfying.

The class also explored the coil and slab techniques, but neither of them gave the same satisfaction of our first pinched pots (it was probably a skill issue).

The slab technique sounded straightforward enough - much like building things out of cardboard, and it gave everyone the freedom to go wild with their most geometric designs.

I went for a twisted pentagon shaped vessel. It's function? That's what I couldn't quite figure out, just like the building process of the twisted pentagon. 

However, I was happy with the result of ny equally indecisive building process.

With the coil technique, after an hour of everyone trying their best to roll out the quickly drying clay into ropes to criss-cross, swirl and wind around into a pot, we unanimously agreed that this technique was the least enjoyable of the three - the clay was much too thirsty for our patience.

I put together a leaf shaped dish, that managed to hold up......for now. But it was very different to what I had in mind. 

Oh well, I guess you learn and adapt.

At the end of the day, the class brought back memories of being a child, making teacups and saucers out of flour clay when playing pretend.

Sure, we had toy cups and everything else, but there was something whimsical about being able to transform a little ball of clay into whatever toy we wanted it to be....and, hopefully, I'll do all that again! ❤️