Last week, we ventured back to visit the Clay Lady with our homeschool group. Last time, we made a Santa bowl by hand-molding the clay. This time, the class was on the potter's wheel. Typically, this class is for ages 7 and up, but the Clay Lady was so nice that she removed the age restriction!
I had never thought about how difficult it would be for an adult, let alone a 4-year-old to sit and patiently mold the clay into a pottery piece. There are SO many components to master in order to make that perfect piece of *simple* pottery. First, he had to master the pedal that controls the speed of the wheel. Then, he had to center his clay on the wheel (photo above). Next, he had to put his thumbs into the center of the clay, to begin forming the bowl.
However, the most difficult part for him was shaping the sides and the rim of the bowl. Up until this last step, he did everything by himself, and only needed help on getting the sides of the bowl to lengthen upward. At one point, he had formed everything perfectly, only to accidentally hit the side -- resulting in an off-centered, and quite odd-shaped, bowl.
The Clay Lady has designed special paints, so that after the bowl was made, it could be painted while it was still on the potter's wheel. This way, we only have to go there once -- rather than creating the pottery piece, waiting for it to be fired in the kiln, and THEN painting it, followed by firing it again.
A BIG thank-you goes out to the Clay Lady, who really inspired us this week! THANKS, Clay Lady.... we can't wait to get our pieces back in 2 weeks!
If anyone is in the Nashville area, we would HIGHLY recommend going there for some of her pottery classes! The Clay Lady is extremely talented, and is more than glad to share her knowledge and expertise of this art with others!
I'm linking up to The Adventures of Bear.
7 comments:
wow!! This looks awesome! I love the look of concentration :-)
Oh thank you for the recipe!! I will have to give this a try. I love your changes too!
This is amazing! I want to try too. Looks like you lall had a great time, and what a great sensory experience for Aikman. : )
Would love to try this with my little one! Seems like Aikman was enjoying it so much!
This looks awesome! My boys would love doing this! Thanks for sharing.
:) Colleen
What a fantastic experience. Thanks for linking up:)
Wow! I have to say I am very impressed! And even if it was hard and needed some help, i bet he was SO SO SO pleased with the result! Wonderful!
I would LOVE for you to join us at Kids Get Crafty (every Wednesday on Red Ted Art) - current link up http://www.redtedart.com/2011/01/19/kids-get-crafty-penguins-boys-umbrellas-card-board-boxes/
Hope to see you there!
Maggy
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