Craft class - Pottery throwing

A very photo-light post today as it's about the pottery throwing class I went on, and being covered in clay is not conducive to handling your phone!

I threw a pot at the Manor House Hotel back in 2014 when I had a fab week there with my mum.  Since then, I've wanted to try it again, but could never find a class.  There is a regular class near to where I live, but it's at the same time as silversmithing so I'd never made it.  Then I noticed you could book a one-off class on a Sunday.  So I did.

10 of us gathered round a table and learnt how to wedge clay.  At this point, I was already a bit mistrustful of the teacher as she seemed rather rude.  As it turns out, it did not bode well.  Clay wedged, we went through to the throwing room where the teacher gave us a 10 minute demonstration covering everything from centering the clay to bringing it up, taking it back down, making the hole and drawing it up, then cleaning it up and cutting it off.  Then we were let loose.  Great, my favourite way to learn.

This was my workstation.  An electric wheel and a stool.  My first fight was to switch the machine to left handed.  The teacher had asked if anyone was left handed, just me, then told me I would try to throw right handed.  Having watched the demonstration, I knew I couldn't.  I just don't have any control with my non-dominant hand.  She was very pissed off with me.  Turned out that throwing left handed involves nothing more than pressing a switch on the side to change the direction of the wheel and moving the foot pedal to the left (which I did myself) which she also fought against me doing!  Years of sewing on a sewing machine meant that I KNOW I can't control speed with my right foot.  But what do I know?

So we began. At first there was much laughter, but then things started to go wrong.  No problem.  We were a room full of beginners, of course things would go wrong.  When they did, the teacher said, very aggressively I might add, "that's not how you do it!  Do it how I showed you!".  Hmmmm....  After being yelled at a few times, people stopped asking...

I was having trouble making my hole.  I could centre the clay and draw it up, but as soon as I put that hole in the top (to make a pot), it went off centre.  She refused to believe me.  Said the problem was it wasn't centred at the start.  So I showed her it was... then she'd walk off and not watch the bit I was having trouble with!

I threw 10 pots.  9 of which collapsed.  The survivor (which is crap!) is in the middle of the photo above.  At that point, I went home!  She said I could throw some more, but what's the point?  I was unable to solve my de-centering problem myself and she just gave me abuse if I asked for help...

(Mine is the one at the bottom).  NOT a good class.  I will NOT be going back.  I don't think pottery is my "thing", but I do think I could do better than this.  Maybe I'll try again with another teacher, if I can find one.

I have chosen not to name the teacher or the place I went to learn as I realise this is a very scathing post.

If my pot survives the kiln (which I doubt!) I will come back and show you the pot.  Oh, another thing!  She said they'd be ready in about 3 weeks.  I asked if she'd email us and she said she doesn't have time to email us and we have to email her to ask if it's ready.  So she doesn't have time to send one group email, but does have time to answer 10 people asking if the pots are ready (and if they're not, these 10 people will email again)... customer service??

Silversmithing - end of term

Silversmithing ended for the summer last week.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to the last class as I fell down the stairs at work and badly sprained my ankle!  At the time, I actually thought it was broken, luckily, it wasn't, but it did mean I couldn't walk or drive.

There were three pieces I wanted to finish before summer.  The chain necklace I've been making for months which just needs to be cleaned up, I'm more than half way across.  This I could actually do at home, then just pickle and barrel polish it in September.  Secondly, the spinner ring which is a replacement for the one that didn't spin which was a replacement for the one that became too big!  And finally, a silver pendent using gold from my mum's wedding ring.

The pan-ultimate lesson brought some disasters.  See that raggedy bit towards the top left?  I melted it.  I heated it too much whilst annealing.  I had to file the whole things down.  I filed for about 90 minutes.  Ouch.

I took this picture about halfway through the filing!  You may notice that the join also split.  Oh dear, not going well!!

This is a new piece.  Sorry for the sideway-ness of the photos.  Apparently you can't rotate in Photobucket without it making a mess of the photo.  The bars are argentium, which I used in my brother's ring.  This makes it easier to attached the tiny gold circles which are cut from mum's wedding ring.  I used a hydrolic press with a set of circle cutters to cut such precise circles.  The idea was to attach them, then run them through the rolling mill to make an inlay, but I decided I liked them standing proud.  I just need to add tube to the back and clean them up and this will be ready.  Sadly, it will have to wait til September now, thanks to the fact I'm so clumsy!

Craft Class - Screen Printing

Last Sunday I went to a craft class at Two Little Magpies. You may (or may not) remember that I've done craft classes at this lovely little handmade shop before.  Once again, the standard of the class was high and it was great fun.

I usually just take photo and whack them in my blog.  This time, a lot of them were taken sideways on, so I tried rotating and cropping a little.  They're looking very odd in this post as I write... I'm hoping they publish ok!  If not, I'll try to redo them.

We were learning to screen print using paper stencils.  We each had a handmade frame.  I thought this was genius, I may just have to make my own!

We cut stencils out of paper and placed them on top of a sheet of paper, under the frame.

Then we squeegeed paint on.  It was acrylic paint with a paint medium mixed in.  I didn't think to take any photos of this stage.

Ta dah!  I used copper paper and a turquoise paint.

You can use each stencil several times, so I added some metallic copper paint into the mix.  I made several more after this, adding a different colour in each time, including a bright pink, but they didn't come out great.  I put the excess paint into a little tub and it made the most amazing metallic purple colour!

Next we were let loose on the shop's stack of paper stencils.  Some hand cut, some cut using a die cut machine.  I found this circles template and picked out some little images to put in each "window".

I printed in silver on black.  I love this!  I'm so chuffed with this stencil/picture/paint and paper combination.  I did a couple more, then started to experiment.

Silver paint on red.  I'm also pleased with this.

Silver on grey, this didn't come out so well.

Possibly my favourite of all.  I used bright pink on orange paper.  Because I couldn't wash the screen between uses as the stencils were stuck to it, some of the silver from previous prints bled through.  I love the effect.

I had a vision of a train of dots in my hand mixed metallic purple on top of the black print.  I got a hole punch and some scrap paper and made a stencil.

I practiced first on the failure print.  I didn't like it.  Experiment over.  I'm glad I tried it on the print I didn't like!

The screens have to be washed between stencils, but it's a quick job, so I thought I'd have a go with some more of the stencils.

One negative gem, one positive.  A mixture of copper and silver paint.  Not exactly sticking to its own side!

I printed these triangles and balloon intending to print over the top, but ran out of time.  Actually, I did another and I DID print over the top - looks like I left that one in the shop as I don't have it!

This was a fantastic workshop, I love Two Little Magpies as a workshop venue and I really enjoyed screen printing, I just wish I were a bit more artistic.  Maybe when I've finished decorating my craft room (yes, still ongoing!), I'll have time to make a frame and experiment some more.