<p>I’m having little trouble in the advanced classes that I’m taking, but I’m kind of worried about my ceramics class. We have to make a project in class that will be graded for craftsmanship, but I am terrible at art (way too left-brained). No matter what I do, I can’t get my project to look even and smooth. Any ideas of how to avoid a bad grade?</p>
<p>…Don’t take ceramics if you’re bad at art…</p>
<p>Arts classes are required for graduation in my school district, and I don’t play instruments or want to take a drama class.</p>
<p>There’s no drawing/paint class? I suck mega-hard at art but managed to get an A in both these to fulfill my requierment.</p>
<p>Choir, dude.</p>
<p>Er. get familiar with clay. Understand how it acts in different levels of dry-ness.</p>
<p>Plastic - clay is very soft, easily mold-able, but cannot take fine details. </p>
<p>Cheese - Clay is soft, can take details. Still deforms if piece is picked up [instead of carefully cradled]. </p>
<p>Leather - Clay is beginning to get hard. Can take fine details. Ideal hardness for carving. Clay still damp to the touch [like a flower petal or leaf?] but not dry all the way through. </p>
<p>Bone - Clay is dry all the way through. It is extremely fragile now. You can’t do much more at this point.</p>
<p>Be careful. If your clay starts cracking, it is drying up too fast. Use a spray bottle to spritz your hands with water or keep a bowl nearby to dampen your fingers. </p>
<p>If your clay keeps sticking to your hands, it is too damp or your hands are too damp. Wedge the clay on a plaster table for a bit. </p>
<p>For you really left-brained people, I’d recommend starting out with slab-ceramics. Very geometric. :] google it! </p>
<p>Basically, you cut out a “blueprint” of your piece, cut out the pieces individually and wait until it gets cheese or leather hard, then piece them together.</p>
<p>For example, if you were to make a cube, cut out 6 squares, wait for them to harden a bit, then score + slip the pieces together.
viola~ </p>
<p>Need help? just PM me. Got a 4 in AP Studio Art 3D as a sophomore and 5 in AP Drawing as a junior.</p>
<p>Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>Jason, I have to get 1.0 credits, so I’m taking the other art class next semester. And I’m even worse at singing!</p>
<p>Vitong, thank you for the extensive information. We’ve done slab in class, and it is my favorite since it’s so easy to do. Unfortunately, for the project I have to make it represent love somehow. So far, it’s a really ugly pool, and it’s due Friday.</p>
<p>careful not to add too much water to your piece. It makes the clay “melt”. and it gets hard to work with.</p>