陶芸 — Playing with Clay

Yamasa offers regular culture classes, and today's class was ceramics.

A small group of us went to a ceramics studio and we each made our own coffee mugs.  It only cost ¥2,000, or less than $20.  I love art and craft projects so of course, I signed up!

Yamasa's teachers drive and act as guides and student herders for a variety of trips and activities, which really adds value to the programs here and makes these extra activities affordable.

We started with a lump of clay, which we rolled out and cut a shape based on a pattern.  Some newspaper was wrapped around a cup that acted as a mold, and we wrapped our clay around it.



We decorated the outside with textures and designs of our own. 

Here's mine.  This cat was cut out using a small cookie cutter!



I have created a mug in Blender, a 3D modeling program, and adding the handle was surprisingly a lot like adding a handle in Blender, especially blending the handle and the mug.



Another mug with a cat theme, this one has ears and a tail.  So cute!



Here is another person's mug.




We signed our work, and we were done. 

The mugs will be painted and fired for us, then returned to us in January.

Other people in the room were working on their own projects, including using a pottery wheel.  I could definitely get into this!  I can see how this would be good therapy -- pounding clay is like kneading dough and it can definitely work your frustrations out!