Coil and Carve

For this project, we were tasked with creating a pot using the coil technique. Once we had created this pot we then needed to carve or etch a design into it. This type of carving is different from the sgraffito style because you are going deeper into the clay when you carve, resulting in more clay being taken from the pot. We also had to keep in mind that one of the requirements was that the pot needed to be taller than it was wide. I think having this requirement helped because the larger the pot the more you could carve into the pot and the better we would get at carving away clay. For this project, I kept it pretty simple because it was just a formative and usually those are just for practice but also they should take less time than a summative. The subject of my pot is just geometric shapes. I wanted to make a design with squiggly lines because I knew that the shapes created wouldn't be natural. For this project, the materials were rather simple, on top of the clay I used glaze SM - 27 because I liked the vibrant colors of the turquoise color. I think that it was good to have a flashy color because it really makes the lines of my project pop out. Other than glaze the only material I used was a simple carving tool to create the lines and design on my pot.

For this project, the process was simple and quick. The first step was to sketch out what we wanted to do. I chose to etch this design into my pot since I was new to this type of carving and I wanted something that looked simple but crisp. Once we had our design it was then time to start building. One of the most useful things for this project was the coil machine. I like that we were able to use this machine because it made all of our coils the same diameter. After we used the machine it was time to start assembling our pot. A good rule of thumb that I had was about every three coils that I did is when I would blend them together. After I was done building my pot it was time to carve my design into my pot. For this carving step, you needed to go pretty deep while also being cautious so that you didn't carve a hole into your pot. After we were done carving our pots went into the kiln for a bisque firing and once they came out it was time to glaze. As I said, I chose to use the glaze SM - 27 because of the vibrant nature that it had, and that helped the lines to stand alone which was the whole subject of my project. After we were done glazing the pot went back into the kiln to turn into its final form. Throughout this project, I kept the design pretty much the same because I wanted to test my skills and see how close I could get my design to the sketch that I made.

The meaning behind my artwork is for it to be an abstract form. Obviously, with this project, you can tell it is a pot but I wanted to make a design that was abstract and didn't really follow a pattern. This project relates to my life because it shows my love for geometry through all of the different lines and shapes created. One thing that I am proud of with this pot is how well the coils blended together. I think that I was lucky that you can only see one coil because this was my first time doing this so I was learning along the way. I also think that it would have been helpful to use a tool to help blend a little better but that was a good takeaway that I can remember and use in the future. One thing that I struggled with was being able to blend my coils together without there being gaps between the coils. I was able to overcome this struggle because as I went along the better I learned how to stretch and manipulate the clay. I also think the carving was tough because once you start carving the clay as deep as we did it is one and done because mistakes are hard to cover up. One thing that I think I would improve was the texture. What I mean is that little clay pieces are stuck all over my pot which makes it uncomfortable to drink from so I think that if I spent ten more minutes smoothing this pot out it would be a little bit better and a little more appealing.