The theme for my cup that I was trying to accomplish is a child like theme. For this particular theme, I first tried to make a disney related cup, however, one problem that I ran into was that I couldn't find a design which could incorporate food and drinks. But, after a lot of researching and looking through google images, I found a cookie monster cup, which I tweaked for the mouth to be an opening for cookies and other food you can have when drinking. This themed was really interesting to me because I loved watching Sesame Street when I was younger and my favorite character was the cookie monster, so I liked creating a cup which could represent this.
I used a lot of techniques to create the shape of my cup including, using the slab roller and the extruded parts. First off, I used a slab roller to flatten out a slab in which I could wrapped my clay around a circular piece of wood and form my cup's shape. Another purpose that I used the slab roller for was to create the mouth of my cup. Since the cookie monster is famous for his love of chocolate chip cookies and is always seen with cookie crumbs falling out of his mouth, I wanted to portray this in my cup by adding an area in which food could be kept. Making this area for food was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, but lucky, I got through it. After trying to push the slab down to the middle of the cup with it falling and breaking, never being able to keep the slip on around the slab, and always making the cup's side's crack, this barrier gave me quite a hard time, but I figured it out. And after doing so, I was able to use many other wonderful techniques to better my cup, which brings me to the extruder. At first I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with the handle of my cup and I didn't have a very definite idea of what I was going to do. However, after extruding some parts and looking at the pieces of clay I had to work with, I decided to make my handle a coil up piece of circular clay that represented the cookie monster's hair. This handle was very fun for me to make as I had done a coiled foot for one of my pinch pots before and this idea of coiled pieces was very interesting to me. Lastly, for the shaping of my cup, I added on extra pieces of clay to represent cookie monster's eyes. These popping eyes really helped the cup come to life and made it more animated and fun for children to use.
After finishing the shape and adding on all the final pieces of clay, I started to glaze my cup. However, instead of glazing my cup after it was fired once, I used LUG's to glaze my cup when it was in it's green ware state. This new type of glazing was very cool for me because using LUG's gave me the power to change the coloring of my pot after it came out of the kiln if I didn't like it and to do some last minute touch ups if I missed a few spots. The LUG glazes that I used were dark red for the mouth, teal blue for the inside, outside, and handle of the cup, and black and white for the eyes. Once I was done painting on these LUG's I put my cup in the kiln and hoped for the best. The next class, after it came out of the kiln, I did some touch ups with the LUG's and then dunked my cup in a bucket of clear glaze. Once this was done, I put my cup in the kiln once again and was finally done!
All in all, my reactions to this piece are pretty good. I enjoyed the overall process and loved getting to work with the LUG glazes. I liked that my pot was very kid friendly and I liked that it was able remind me and many of my other classmates about our childhood and sesame street! I also was really proud of the fact that I was able to create an area for food to be kept in, which I don't think any of the the other cups had. And though the making of my cup was a little hard at times, I've grown to appreciate and respect the people who do this for a living. It took me so long to figure out what I truly wanted to make out of my cup and even then, when I finally got an idea for my cup, it was hard for me to execute it. So what I've realized is that it's hard to come up with feasible, realistic, and likeable design ideas, but if you work really hard and analyze all aspects carefully it'll eventually work out in the end. I never would've been aware of all of these things if I hadn't had to make this cup so I'm really appreciative of that.
Above is a picture of a cup that I think was the best designed and I really look up to. I loved the fact that the cup has an interactive handle which connects to a fun basketball hoop. Also, inside the cup, there's a small basketball which I think is a really cool way of incorporating the cup's design idea and adding an extra piece of clay to the design. I also really liked the fact that the cup maker's glazing was done very accurately and that there were no cracks, bumps, or a thick rim around the top of the cup.
After finishing the shape and adding on all the final pieces of clay, I started to glaze my cup. However, instead of glazing my cup after it was fired once, I used LUG's to glaze my cup when it was in it's green ware state. This new type of glazing was very cool for me because using LUG's gave me the power to change the coloring of my pot after it came out of the kiln if I didn't like it and to do some last minute touch ups if I missed a few spots. The LUG glazes that I used were dark red for the mouth, teal blue for the inside, outside, and handle of the cup, and black and white for the eyes. Once I was done painting on these LUG's I put my cup in the kiln and hoped for the best. The next class, after it came out of the kiln, I did some touch ups with the LUG's and then dunked my cup in a bucket of clear glaze. Once this was done, I put my cup in the kiln once again and was finally done!
All in all, my reactions to this piece are pretty good. I enjoyed the overall process and loved getting to work with the LUG glazes. I liked that my pot was very kid friendly and I liked that it was able remind me and many of my other classmates about our childhood and sesame street! I also was really proud of the fact that I was able to create an area for food to be kept in, which I don't think any of the the other cups had. And though the making of my cup was a little hard at times, I've grown to appreciate and respect the people who do this for a living. It took me so long to figure out what I truly wanted to make out of my cup and even then, when I finally got an idea for my cup, it was hard for me to execute it. So what I've realized is that it's hard to come up with feasible, realistic, and likeable design ideas, but if you work really hard and analyze all aspects carefully it'll eventually work out in the end. I never would've been aware of all of these things if I hadn't had to make this cup so I'm really appreciative of that.
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