BABY TURTLE

Ceramics and the type A personaility

Its fun and therapeutic, they say...
I sign up for the basic ceramics manual wheel course with Megan.

Ground rules: This course is for beginners to master the basic forms of pottery. No free forms allowed, you build to exact specs and dimensions given. Start with a perfectly straight cylinder, extend it into a tall vase, followed by a bowl, extend it into round vase, build it up into a teapot and make two identical teacups.

Perfect. A workshop that emphasizes basic techniques. My mum always say “learn a skill, learn the foundation well. Don’t play play.” This school’s philosophy is in line with mine.

The Guinea Pig

Megan wanted to do a guinea pig on her first day.

The Bowl

Perfection

All went well until the day when the clay decided not to collaborate. It was then I discovered "fun and therapeutic" does not apply to everybody doing ceramics, especially when you are a type A person.

“Stop pushing the clay, understand the material and work with its properties, not against it!!!” I hear Peggy repeating this again and again. I hear you, Peggy. I borrowed the books on clay. I read them... But doing it is so different.

It took me 2 hours to reach this rounder and round form and if I mould this further I might accidentally make it out of shape. Finally I showed Peggy a form I was satisfied with and she said its not round enough… Seriously?!

The Round Vase

Find your center through ceramics they say...

Certainly. I find my neck feeling strained, my shoulders stiff… I am so in tune with myself and my surrounding… I feel stressed from the warm clay within my fingers. I know I forgot to breathe sometimes. I know I need a massage immediately after this.

But I endured. I know that craftsmanship comes from repeated practice with deliberation and focus to gain proficiency This is not as easy as I thought. I looked over at Megan, composed and peacefully working on her cup. She seemed chilled and did not seem to have any problems with her shapes. A little voice kept telling me “what if its only me, what if I am really not very good at this?”. Ugh.

The Cup

Someone seems to have a lot of fun...

The Jar

Having a product to show for your efforts to justify for precious time spent seem to be a must in this Instagram era. If you have nothing to show, it never happened! But making this takes time. There is the creating, waiting, drying, trimming, glazing, firing etc…. OMG...It is not instant…

I reflected on the handle of my teapot. I need to let this fancy shape rest and harden. Was waiting for things to dry worth my very expensive hourly rate? What do I do in the mean time? If I have known this needs to harden, I would have done the handle first (except that the spout also needs to rest) Every minute should be productive… I don’t like to waste time. I am stressed.

The Tea Set

Lesson 8. Glazing. I lost it.

Color is not my forte. I took an hour and remains undecided. Megan was literally rolling her eyeballs. Yes I cannot imagine my final product with a color... I don't like colors...I am stressed. I had imagine renovating my room with a new shelf to display my masterpieces.. I am happy with the forms, I work hard on them. Now the last bit.... to glaze... there is no certainly!!!! Depending on the time of the day, the clay I use, the technique I apply the glaze, the location I place my work in the kiln, the final color can come out totally different....

Frankly, I am panicking. But Megan is here so I need to look cool. All my efforts leading to that perfect final product may be destroy by a final glaze in a firing processI cannot control.... I suddenly wonder why I join this class...

Lesson learnt

Type A people can't do ceramics... But type A people needs to do ceramics... I discovered so much of myself... I thought this would be a breeze for me... but it has been a truly difficult 10 lessons...

Covid-19 HBL with M&M Day 1-3

Decided to just upload everything into a blog every few days so that it is easier to organise the sharing.

Thank you to all M&M teachers for checking and tracking on how the kids are doing. Teaching is not easy and we are trying our best to follow the school's schedule... Here goes for the first 3 days!

We explored google 3D animals... I think this can evolve into a more comprehensive activity...

We tried to exercise indoors.

Morgan completed an art and craft on flowers and bees. He colored the background on day one and got bored. I asked him on day 2 if he wanted to draw flowers, butterflies or caterpillars and he chose flowers. Blue and purple/orange flowers, 2 bees were drawn by me. The rest drawn, color, painted by him. I help him cut and he pasted. Good job Morg.

Surprising hard weaving craft for Morgan. Megan told me it was hard for her the last time we did this as well... interesting...

We explored habitats. Morg had to say "the (lion) lives in the forest" every time he placed an animal in their correct habitat.

Megan discovered online learning and homework is no joke... Mind map of spore identity for Art homework. Never knew what a mind map was, till now... and I thought I said Kaya toast instead of MBS. Oh nevermind...

DRAWING competition daily. I name an object, M&M draw, daddy judge.
We notice that Morgan only wants to win. When daddy announce Megan the winner for the round, Morg will tear up and say he is a loser, its his fault and his mistake that he lost!! Is this normal? Maybe we need to change the approach?

I spy with my eye had been time consuming. My eyes hurt after whole day working on laptop then playing I Spy... Meg beat me on the game of Oshi. Meg teaching Morg how to play Oshi... hahah good luck...

National Library, thank you for saving our lifes... Morg's all time fav is First Illustrated MATHS dictionary,
The Book with No Pictures. Meg read Matilda again after discovering Matilda on Netflix.

Megan drew a new flip book and we argued on how to flip and film this properly...