Two classes into my beginning ceramics class, and I am learning many many things. First and foremost is that clay is incredibly fun to work with, though getting it to do exactly what you want it to do is perhaps the biggest challenge. So far my class has covered slab, pinch, and coil pottery, while our first weeks worth of work has just gotten bisque fired ( have not seen how my pieces fared yet). I look forward to learning about glazing which I understand will be covered this upcoming week.
The biggest surprise for me was how much I would enjoy coil pottery, and I have my fingers crossed that a yunomi/ wan I made will turn out in the end, as I love the shape I made with it, and it is something that could not be made by being thrown, at least not easily. Its a somewhat standard wan shape, but its built up on a triangle, and the piece though it bows out and is bowl like maintains the hint of a triangle shape throughout the entire piece. I also spent a decent bit of time carving the foot to make it actually look like a foot for a cup.
At the same time I am a little bit scared as the substitute instructor the other day gave us what was a cross between a warning and a reassuring comment, that honestly quite a few pieces just do not make it through the entire firing process, even for very experienced potters. Granted while I am not sure that any piece I have made has been "great" I am worried that some of the pieces I put the most effort into, would suffer from "overworking" and as such end up having some sort of structural failure during the process.
If the pot was dry when it went into the bisque kiln, you'll probabbly get it back intact (provided mishandling didn't break it when it is loaded into the kiln.) The only cause for concern are pots with uneven thickness in the walls of the pot. So, even as a beginner, almost all of my pots have survived bisque. Overworked pots survive, they just don't look as good. My glazing, however, has saved some bad pots, and ruined many more good pots! Pay careful attention to the instruction on glazing.
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