Coil Technique

The assignment for this project was to make a pot of sorts using the coil technique. This mean that we were to make long rolls of clay and stack them up the create the whole pot. We then smoothed out the coils, did whatever carving needed to be done for the pot and used glazes. I chose to do a four seasons put. I was inspired not neccesarily both those certain pots shown above, but by four season cups in general. I have seen sets before and I thought it would be cool to incorporate all four seasons into one pot. The coiling itself was difficult as the coils had to be pretty equal in size to the other coils to make a strong pot. I slipped and scored the coils onto each other with each layer added. After I had smoothed out the pot, I carved a tree into all four sections. The summer tree had all its leaves, while the fall tree was beginning to lose them, the spring was beginning to gain them and the winter had none. I carved clouds for summer, flowers for spring, leaves falling and a leaf pile for fall and footprints in the snow for winter. I then used the glaze PC-30 for the brown color of the trees and leaves for fall, SM-42 for the light green of the spring ground, PC-27 for the dark green of the leaves of the tree during summer, C-10 for the snow in winter and the clouds in summer and PC-23 for the blue in the sky in summer, spring and fall. I glazed the inside of the mug with the PC-23 blue as well.

I used balance on this pot as well as a contrast in color. In all four seasons, the tree is in the left corner of the section and this was meant to balance the piece so it would look like the same scene for all four seasons. The colors of the glazes also told a great deal about this piece because without the colors, it would be much more difficult to tell which season is which. The contrast in colors also shows the vast differences among the seasons which was something I was aiming for with this piece. For this specific piece, my original idea of what I wanted my final product to look like was very similar to what it ended up looking like and so the project didn't evolve much, but the colors of my glazes was changed throughout to fit the best possible outcome.

This piece was simply a result of me seeing some four seasons cups and thinking they were cool. I ended up giving this to my mom for Christmas and I know that she likes the change of seasons and so this was my personal connection with the work. I am most proud of the winter season in this because I love the way the carving I did with the tool looks like snow coming down. I also like the way the blue works with the brown leaves during fall. I struggled the most with the actual coiling process and getting the coil to look good and stay solid but after I had completed this, the glazing and carving was fun. The major thing that I would have liked to improve is the overall shape and form of the piece, but I made up for this being slightly off with the carving and good selection of glazes.