Reflection on our First Pinch Pots

For the past two weeks, Ceramics 1 students have been learning to shape clay in the most basic way, pinching. Starting with a small piece of clay,  they pinched and shaped the clay in a variety of vessels. Some students made bowls, others made baskets, and some made vases. They explored the tools in the took trays such as the serrated edge scrapers, loop tools, and modeling tools to shape and embellish their pots.

 

We spent time looking at a few images of ceramics from ancient Egypt, noticing how those potters made decisions about the form, the foot, the lip and additions for each piece of pottery.

Recently, students learned how to connect two pinch pots to accomplish larger pottery forms. They also started using paddles to shape and smooth their work. One day at the start of class they studied pinch pots that were already bisque fired and tried to decide the steps used to build them.

Pinch pots from previous year, part of the classroom permanent collection.

It has been a great start to Ceramics 1. Students at each table have learned to operate the pug mill and work together to set up clay and tools. They are also practicing working together to  store their works in progress and cleaning up the table.

Thursday night was open house, it was enjoyable and we had a good turn out. I had some students volunteer to help sell some items at the club expo. I was hoping to do a bit better than bring in $11 dollars for the classroom account, it’s $11 more dollars than if I we hadn’t bothered.

One Response

  1. ethan3sc20 October 17, 2018 at 9:48 am |

    Great job clearly explaining your work you have been working on in class for the past two weeks. This is a nearly perfect blog post so i do not have any suggestions.

    Reply

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