It has been awhile since I have posted on my blog(I've been posting on my Instagram more regularly instead lately). It is currently week 8 of my final semester, which means less than 7 weeks until the BFA Exhibition. My work is pretty under way with about 3 weeks of work left to do(I have my weeks planned day by day now). So this semester my inspiration is nature but specifically the reality and true form of nature and how we take that and convey it through out memory into designs and patterns. I've been using leaves and bark to make impressions into my pieces to start me out and morphing them from there. I have also been finding fabric designs and carving them into a plate, bowl and mug set that will contain 8-10 sets on a table. My forms of work vary from wheel thrown to coil built to slab, but all are hand built and altered after created. The more I do the better the rounds of work become and more problem solving to do. Our show's title will be "Lasting Impressions". I'm excited and actually feel a lot less anxious about it all then I did at the beginning of the semester. 

Since this is the last week of classes I helped load my work and the classes work into the gas kiln for bisque fire, I had planned to do an electric firing of my own but since the power was out this was next best. Once unloaded I glazed all of my work using different glazing techniques like dipping and brushing in layers, and also using wax resist and latex resist which was cool to use. And all while using colors I found that worked in the first round of work and new combinations I took time to find on the wall of glaze tiles. I glaze fired all of that at the end of this week getting new results that will be very helpful to move on to next semester. I worked on the cleaning studio tasks for the end of the semester and did 5 this week as well as studio boss tasks.
I also labeled and priced my 'extras' from this semester for the studio sale this week and took shifts throughout the day as well! I sold all but one piece at the sale that I had out. 

After unloading my bisque this past weekend I glazed the work I wanted to get more information on to see how I want to glaze the next set next week. At the beginning of this week I created 8 more leaf forms and 4 more platters. With this past set of 7 leafs and this set I finished this week I have been trying to experiment with different techniques such as carving, drawing with the needle tool, changing the lip of the form, adding color slip, drawing intricate textures and more...I also want to experiment with underglaze and other glaze applications in this next round next week when doing my final glaze fire.
This week we also went to the wood shop and made two cut out to make platters with more volume, I used both of them this week but I plan to do more work with them next semester as well as make some plaster molds at the beginning of next semester too. The four platters I did make I enjoyed and hope they come out of this bisque fire okay! My glaze fire this week went well, slightly over fired but nothing was ruined because of it. I got good information for my next round of tests, I plan to try applying glaze in a different way for more consecutive coverage. 

To begin this week I created multiple plate like forms on the wheel and manipulated them to be a sort of 'abstract' leaf in which I then carved and drew onto and manipulated some more in form. I want to experiment more with this form and sharpen my skills on creating an evenly delicate form. I also have been creating trays to figure out what forms work well and trying different textures and patterns too. I continued this week to work with the bark texture and using a hump mold to make new forms. I am really interested in these leaf forms and bark(and nature) textures and want to carry this over into my next semester work! 
I bisque fired work that I previously did a few weeks ago like my plates and others, and also fired my new platters, leaf and bark pieces to see what my next round of work will be before my last firing of the semester. I plan to glaze fire these works next week to see what final glazes I want to use in my second round.  In the second round of work I want to expand on creating different surfaces of a leaf with different techniques using the needle tool, slip trailing, carving, additions, water carving, etc.
As these final two weeks approach I'm slightly anxious about wanting to have more work and figure out just what with nature I want to convey but this semester has already helped me a lot in doing that. And this last project has really opened me up to pushing my work forward and to what I want to convey.