On Dec. 10, in Mrs. Chris Gray’s, Art, fourth hour Ceramics II class, the students worked on wheel-throwing to try and create a desired cylinder shape.
“Our goal is to make a cylinder. There are steps that they do for each level to get to a cylinder so a lot of them are doing that and then a couple people have actually gotten a cylinder thrown so that’s kind of our goal just to get a cylinder which seems really basic but its very hard. I love wheel-throwing so I do enjoy teaching it, so I think it’s kind of a really cool thing because not everybody does it,” Mrs. Gray said.
Although it may look easy, it is sometimes hard for students to master this skill and get the shape that they want.
“I think its just practicing, I think they do a really good job so I mean I think just some of them get a little discouraged that they’re not turning out as well as others so I think just not getting down on yourself and just keep working through it,” Mrs. Gray said.
Making a cylinder does not just happen all at once, and there are steps that the students learn ahead of time so they are more successful when it comes to making the cylinder.
“[Making a cylinder is] a concept that requires learning how to throw thrown pots, ceramics I we learned all about hand building so theres a different technique that you can also create pottery so this is like kind of the beginning steps to learn how to create thrown pieces of pottery,” Mrs. Gray said.
The students have been working hard on their projects and will finish some time next week.
“Well it depends on each student depending on if they get the steps or not but our goal is to have them to be able to fire and get a cylinder thrown probably like a couple weeks thats our goal of consistently practicing. I would say we started right after thanksgiving and we are continuing up until end of semester,” Mrs. Gray said.
