Soft Slab Construction

For this assignment we were tasked to make a practice mug as well as four mugs in a set out of slabs. For the matching set I tried to match the color or the design but only two of the mugs ended up actually looking like they go together. This relates to my life because not everything has to be perfect or match to be considered part of a set or group sort of like people.

For all the mugs we first started by finding a cylindrical item we wish to base our piece around (such as a tennis ball container). We then wrapped newspaper around the container and rolled our slab of clay around it. After that step is when I added the design on the mug/s. My practice mug is the blue one with the cool pattern on it which I used white lace and wrapped it around the clay. I then rolled it on the table like a rolling pin to try and imprint a lace pattern on the clay. For the other design I used a Lego piece wheel and pushed it into the clay where I wanted it to show the Sandollar sort of pattern.

I tried many different things when creating these pieces including leaving the side of the mug overlapped versus smoothing it out. Experimenting with different thicknesses of the slabs to see what would work best and what would be the most sturdy after a design was added. I learned that adding designs makes the mug thinner in some instances which was something I learned to be cautious of. If I were to do this assignment again I would try to better match the mugs that are supposed to be a set as well as apply my knowledge of thickness and how easy one thing was to work with over something else.