The Error part of Trial and Error.

Hey friends, I just got two new pieces home from the ceramics studio that didn't go the way I had planned. I had an awesome ceramics professor in college who used to say that clay is a good metaphor for life. I think that's true-- not everything works out the way you want them to all the time. I'm posting photos of these pieces anyway because even if they aren't perfect, they're still kind of cool.

First of all, I made this bird with five smaller birds stacked on its back. Now that I am doing so much throwing, I started missing hand building, so sculpted these little guys and stuck them together.

The glaze did not come out quite like I had hoped, but it started growing on me. I think it sort of looks like the sky, which fits in nicely the bird motif.

Then I took it home, showed my mom, and she promptly dropped it and the tail broke. Oops.

It is a pretty clean break, so maybe there is a way to glue it back together?

I have learned that if you lament about a broken piece of ceramics to an experienced ceramic artist, they will shrug and say, "Make a new one." This is totally different from all the painters I have worked with, who tend to want everything to be just right. I interned with an artist who didn't want me to breathe on her wet paintings. Another artist for whom I interned monitored my every brush stroke on my first day. 

I am not exaggerating. 

I'm sure there are many fussy artists who work with clay out there, and painters who are not so particular, but based on the ones I have met, I think painters could learn a lot from potters. 

....... And speaking of potters, my Harry Potter bowl came out of the kiln as well!

I decorated it based on the test tiles featured in this post.

Ron came out awesome... but unfortunately Harry's and Hermione's faces melted.

It is a sad day in the wizarding world when the boy who lived and the cleverest witch of her age were defeated by a mere kiln and one-layer-of-clear-glaze-too-many (even after Gary warned me not to use too much!). I was thinking that maybe I could just say that it is portraying a moment from their second year, when Ron's wand was broken. Maybe his spell backfired and melted his friends' faces, then Madam Pomfrey would re-solidify them in a jiffy. 

I will draw a little cartoon of whoever can come up with the best story as to why Harry and Hermione's faces melted. Extra points for the cleverest references to the books and uses of additional characters.