52 Form Project - Week 1

Sneak peek from last week

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

 In celebration of a new year, I have embarked on a new project for each week of the coming years. I am calling it the 52 Form Project and will be making a new form each week. I am hoping this will, as Dan Finnegan once said, "stretch my legs" and stretch my creative brain for exploring new forms and variations on forms. I think this will be an opportunity to refine some techniques and put other techniques I have been wanting to play with to work.

For this first week I made lidded jars by throwing a closed vessel on the pottery wheel and pressing the side of the vessel to make the flange of the lidded jar. It's been a few years since I have played around with the technique of making a closed lidded form, so I brushed up on the technique with a few videos. First, I watched Jessy Johanneck in the following video:

Then I watched Melody Cooper's video for tips on trimming up the lid (I also enjoy how she puts her hair up!):

 Here were the beginnings of my jars. Rather than cutting the vessels off of the bat, I left the piece attached to the bat and did not remove it until I cut it from the bat:

Closed forms

Closed form with the knob

 I brought back a technique I used to do with a wide wire to cut the vessel from the wheel and add texture to the base:

I added white slip to the exterior and plan to paint patterns on the vessels with blue cobalt and some red iron oxide:

I tried a variety of shapes and did not find the straight-sided vessels to be as workable as this angled shape:

 New project and more photos next week! Stay tuned!