Tea pot

My idea for my tea pot was initially a bee hive with a common round handle on. But I wanted it to be more interesting than just a bee hive, so I decided to make my spout a bee which looked like it was flying out of the hive, and my handle a tree branch. 

First, I started out with 4 different little parts. I rolled out a big slap, cut out a circle shape then mold it into a bowl shaped mold to make the top round part of the hive. I then used the rest part of the slap and make a cylinder which its diameter must match with diameter of the mold. The third parts was the bee spout and last is the tree branch handle. 

To accentuate the texture of the beehive. I used the tiny extruder and extruded tiny little coils then "slip and score" them on. It took forever! But I love it. I also decorated on two little bees on the sides and a flower on top.

Finally, I low fired it with some CTL's, Slips and Yellow and Brown LG's.
And it functions as great as it looks.

Coil Pot

I started out with a kite shaped base cut out from slap. Then built up with coils in variety shapes (triangles, rainbow, braid, ...). These are all hand-built coils.  

 

I then, instead of dunking the whole pot in high fire glazes, I brushed them on. Brushing on glazes was a little tedious to feel in all the tiny gaps but it will accentuate the texture better. I chose Tenmoku, Albany Slip Brown and the Blue. 

But, eventually, the blue did not really work out. That's why there's some green white-ish spots but it's look pretty good to me. And I am happy how it turned out to be. 

Godfather analysis

This is the shot when Sollozzo and McCluskey pick Micheal up and they are on the way to the bar.

• Close up shot at Micheal's face, being in the middle of the frame. 
• We can barely see his entire face as well as Sollozzo's and McCluskey's
• Contrast in light appear strongly in this picture. Everything is very dark accept the light shine through the back window. It's probably from a car behind and the streetlight pole. 
• Sollozzo and McCluskey is pushed to the sides and barely shown by the streetlight. They remains in the dark almost the whole the scene. 
• Plus, the two are the only talking in the car.
• Micheal is very still, not much of movement. He barely turn his head. 
• As we can see, his eyes are almost looking at the same spot every time. 
• The difference in movement between Micheal and Sollozzo shows that Micheal is very different with the other two, which are very active and talkative, full with movement. 
• Micheal is looking still, he's calculating something. He's thinking what happen next (the gun, the murder)

• The closing scene of the "Godfather" 
• The scene is shot in deep focus, presenting Kay in the front and Micheal in the back. 
• Even though Kay in the bigger figure, standing real close to the camera, Micheal is the one in focus. 
• Added to this, the two are both in the frame, but the distance between them is far apart. Furthermore, the two are separate by the line in the middle of the frame, creating the audience a feeling of disconnection.  
• This shot then cut away to a medium shot of the room Micheal is in. 
• The purpose of this shot is suggesting the audience a view of who and what is happening in side the room as well as giving a perspective of Kay. 
• Micheal again is in the middle and surrounded around by the three other character
•  presenting Micheal is the central attention. 
• The eerie sad music from the beginning of the music is once again play in this scene. 
• Its suddenly get louder and louder when two second man kisses Micheal's hand - toward the climax as well as giving the audience a pity feeling of Kay when the camera cut away shot close up to Kay's face. 
• Then the volume gets lower as well as the pitch suggesting the scene is over - leaving the audience an uneasy feeling. 

Keith Carter - Artist In Residence

Keith's mop bucket

Keith Carter who is an artist in residence. He is currently working at Clay on Steele studio in Algoma and at the Barnsite Gallery in Kewaunee. We are honored to have him in our class. He shows and teaches us many thing outside of the box which we might not have chance to discover them on our own.

After showing us new and cool techniques working with clay, he assigned us the "Rustic Vessels" topic. Taking the idea of a vintage object, we have to recreate that object out of clay and then add on another found object which is not clay into the clay part with a purpose.

I am really excited with this topic because it's really different from what we get to do in class. Normally, we only get to make pots, cups but this time we get to incorporate a non-clay object into our clay piece. I think it's really fun to do.  And since we have to choose a vintage object, I choose to recreate a rotary phone which no so many people using it nowadays. People now have their "smartphones" with them almost 24hours per 7, forgetting the rotary phones or dial phones which played an important role back in the day. The found object I'm going to add on is a wire connecting the base to the hand set. I wrap the wire around a pencil to create its shape like a spring.

I used super glue to connect the parts together.

Keith is an inspiring artist. He gives us new ideas,  helps us in making the objects. He is funny and friendly. Not only he gives us great ideas but also makes some awesome pots, sculptures and vessels. They are all great. I really like them. And I would love to have him in our class again.

Time distortion

• The movies seems to happened in a really long time compare to the entire movie had been put into just two minutes
• Hitchcock distorts time by using many pan shots to make the length of the movie longer, showing from place to another at the same time showing different actions happening at the same time. 
• He sometimes use connection cuts during the conversation of the characters in the movie. 
• ex: Hitchcock shot at one of the window and back to Jeffries face and then to another window and so on. That would make the scene seems longer. 
• Compare to the clip of the entire movie had been put into just a two minutes long. If it wasn't Hitchcock editing, the movie would only last for 2 minutes. 

Textured container

I first formed a cylinder with a mold. Then slip and score to connect the clay together. I used some of the texture square and also hand decorate to create the decoration on the container.

 The glaze that I used for my textured container body was Albany Slip Brown first layer and another Albany Slip brown layer for the half top container. 

I was thinking about making something fun for my container lid so I made a short braid to go on top of the extruded parts. The glaze for my lid was double layer of Smokey Merlot. 

"Movement" - Dirty Harry

A short clip from the "Dirty Harry" movie was about two man, one with a gun chasing the other (the injured one) in a stadium. The tension is built up even more in the dark night.

In the beginning of the clip, there were a few scenes where the two were running toward the camera. The camera was placed at a low angle when the injured one running by to show that he was moving fast. He was moving toward from the left to the right down the stairs. The camera was staying still except the director used a little of a pan shot and that he then moving away from the camera to emphasize he was running away and in fear. In the other hand, when the man with a gun moved toward the camera, the camera was placed just a little lower than a point-of-view angle and he stopped right in front of the camera showed that he was probably slower and moving behind the injured man.

The man with gun became more significant while the other became less significant toward the middle of the clip because the man with gun tend to only ran toward the camera while the other ran away from the camera.

Toward the end of the clip, the injured man was shot with a stationary cam and a long shot when he was running down the field. Based on what Giannetti says in his book, the longer and higher the shot, the slower the movement appears to be. After he got shot, he felt to the ground. Then, the camera was only placed at a high angle showed his lack of power. In the end, it was greatly ended with a helicopter shot flew away from what was happening showed the empty stadium in darkness covered by a foggy sky.