Clay for Couples

A few weeks ago, my husband and I decided to sign up for a Clay for Couples class. It is put on by the Great Plains Art Museum. Not only do they offer youth classes but they also offer a variety of different art classes for adults. Check out their website for more info: http://plainsart.org/learn/art-experiences/ This Clay for Couples class was one night and was held over at the Great Plains Art Museum.

For $50 a couple, we had 2 ½ hours to play around with the wheel as well as learn some hand building techniques from Paul, the instructor. Even though I had done some clay throwing in college, it had been almost 10 years since I had touched clay or tried to make a pot on the wheel. My husband, Jon, had never had a chance to do it.

After some insightful and very informative instruction and demonstration, Paul let us try our hand at making our own pots and bowls. Of course, Jon started whipping out bowls as if he had done it for years! I struggled to get into a groove. He made three different pots/bowls. One was a little wobbly, but he managed to save it. 

Jon's three creations.

       

The biggest problem I had when throwing pots years ago was getting the clay centered on the wheel. Turns out time doesn’t change that much. I managed to make two different small bowls. The first one was pretty thick on the bottom – I didn’t go down as far as I could have. The second one I played around with a little bit more and flared out the edge.

My two bowls.

After playing around with the wheel, Paul taught us how to do some hand building with clay. We used the clay roller (not sure if that’s the official term) to get an even thickness and then folded it over an existing bowl mold. We used some different tools and lace to make some fun patterns and textures on the clay while it was still semi wet.

At the end of the night, we got to pick out which glazes we wanted on our pieces and they would be fired and glazed in the next week or so. We didn’t take part in any of that – it was just a one night class after all. After a few weeks had gone by, I got an email that our pots were ready to be picked up. I drove downtown and picked them up and brought them home. I was super excited to see how they turned out!

Jon had chosen red, black, and blue glazes for his three projects whereas I chose black and red for my two bowls. The one project we made together with the different textures was glazed in red. I think they turned out quite nice for not having much experience or time! Definitely a fun date night and was money well spent.