This vessel is shaped like a pumpkin. The inspiration for both of my pieces is a ceramic artist named Kate Malone. Almost all her pottery is made to look like different fruits and vegetables. They’re very smooth and well made, and the paint makes them look like watercolor. Most of the detail in this vessel is in the color as opposed to the clay itself, but of course, it wouldn't look like a pumpkin without the telltale shape. The glaze creates a texture, even though there isn't one in the actual clay. The purpose of this vessel was originally to be a bowl, but since I ended up giving it a lid, it's really more of a pot now. I made this by creating a coil pot first, and then adding slabs shaped into boat shapes around the outside. I made the lid the same way. I did that so the clay wouldn’t be too thick to fire. I thought of adding leaves and more curly stems at the bottom, but it would have been too hard to transport and they probably would have broken off. So I stuck to just the one on the lid. I pride myself a lot in trying to make sure everything is as smooth as possible (mostly due to summer camp ceramics teachers, but also because it just looks better like that) and maybe about a day was dedicated to just that. I actually like this vessel quite a lot. It took me more than a week, which makes it the vessel I've probably spent the most time on, ever. The only thing I'm dreading about it is that now my own standards are a lot higher, which means that pretty much any other vessel I work on is going to take this long or longer. I know I said I spent a whole day on smoothing it out, but I still think it could have been smoother. But, I guess the bumpiness makes it look a bit more like a real pumpkin, so it's okay.
I made this vessel to look like a flower. It has two rows of petals going around the outside. Like the pumpkin, most of the design is in the shape and color. There isn't much of a texture component to it; it's pretty simplistic. This one was a lot harder to do than the pumpkin, since I had to attach so many petals. The cup itself is made from coils again, and the petals triangle-shaped slabs. It was originally supposed to look like a rose, but rose petals have such a specific shape, and I couldn’t really get it to work with the cup shape I had. So, now it’s just a generic flower. Like the pumpkin, I was going to add leaves at the bottom, but decided against it since it would be awkward to pick up. I don't really like this one. It didn't turn out like i originally hoped. I knew it would be hard to make petals out of clay but I didn't expect it to be this hard. It's not a total failure, though. It still looks like a flower. (In retrospect it actually looks kind of like an artichoke.)