Four Cups

• For this project, we learned how to create cups, specifically four mugs, from clay slabs. First, we would roll out the slabs then would wrap them, create the bottom by tracing, and add a handle of choice through slip and scratch. For this project, I painted all my cups with blue underglaze and then used an underglaze pencil for details so the cups would match. There is a fifth cup because Ruth cut off the top of her cup and I wanted to incorporate a smaller cup/dish into my set of mugs. 

• This project was done by rolling out a clay slab to the thickness we wanted, cutting out the thickness of the cup we wanted, and rolling it into a cylinder by wrapping the clay slab around the tennis ball box. We would scratch and slip the two sides together so it would be a solid smooth cylinder. Then we would attach a bottom and handle through scratch and slip. Overall once you got the system down it was relatively easy, but by the time I got this process down the project was over.

• the reason I used medium blue underglaze is that I was a strong deep blue to combat the white clay, but I also wanted to keep this simplistic vision of a cup where you can still see the clay. This was a little too simplistic though so I tried to make little designs with really small paint brushes, but it was too hard to get a neat design with the little brush and thick underglaze. This issue was resolved when Mr. Anderson gave me an underglaze pencil, not only could I make thinner and lighter/harder lines, but it was much easier to control a pencil than a paintbrush.

If I am going, to be honest, I think that I could be a lot happier with these cups if I had more time to explore the process of making them so I could finally use the tricks I learned to make four solid cups that I was happy with, but for the most part every cup has little mistakes or uneven bits that I don't think are worth given to my parents as a gift. I am very happy with the final design and colors though!