Independently Designed

Artist Statement: For this project, I was able to create anything that I wanted (making sure to consider the short amount of time I had). When this project was first announced, I was very excited because my favorite projects that I have done in the past are the ones where I have a lot of freedom in what I am creating. After doing a bit of research and finding a few ideas that I could potentially try out, I finally decided to create cups with cool handles. After a bit of sketching and more brainstorming, I finally decided to make three cups with ocean themed handles, one whale tail, one octopus tentacle, and one lobster claw. Unfortunately, due to time, I was only able to create two of these, the whale tail, and the octopus tentacle.

To begin this project, I rolled out a slab in order to make the cup for my octopus tentacle handle.  I then made the base of the cup and connected and smoothed the overall cup. Then, to make my tentacle handle, I used the pull method for the first time ever because I thought this method of handle making would create the perfect shape of a tentacle that went from thick to skinny and was round, not square/rectangular. After make the tentacle I desired, I connected it to my cup, making the tentacle curl at the bottom, resembling a real octopus. Lastly, I added little suctions all around the tentacle to make it look realistic as possible. After I was finished with the tentacle cup, I began making the whale tail cup using the same slab process I had previously used. I then used the pull method as well to create the whale tail handle and modeled the actual tail to attack to this pulled handle. Once this was done, I attached the handle and added a bit of a support beam for the handle so I knew that the handl would be sturdy enough to hold. Once I was all finished smoothing every thing out, I glazed my cups, and they were finally finished.

I really like how my cups turned out and had so much fun with this project. If I were to do this project  again, I think I first of all, make the third lobster claw cup and second of all, take my time a little more because throughout my process for creating the whale cup, I was definitely very rushed just because of the time crunch. Another thing I would maybe do is make the cups a little bigger because they definitely shrunk a lot in the kiln. Overall though, I really like my final products and will definitely give these paices out to my family and friends.