Hastings Summer School Ceramics Course

 

Upon visiting the LCC universities in Elephant and Castle and Camberwell I felt that I didn't have enough experience of certain subjects to completely make my mind up about what it is I would like to study at university. My three main subject matters that I am most interested in are Photography, Ceramics and 3D textiles. I had not yet studied ceramics at school and felt that before choosing what option I would like to take for year 13 I needed to get some experience. Because of this I did some research and found a 5 day ceramics course that was running during the summer in the Sussex Coast college of Hasting.  

Before attending the course my interests in ceramics were mainly coiling and creating pots as I have a keen interest in interior design and see a lot of different bowls and pots throughout many different interior design pots; I especially like the outdoor garden pots in Designers Guild at the moment.

Garden pots in designers guild

 

The 5 day course consisted of learning different hand-building skills, such as coiling, slab building and modelling and using these skills to produce a range of finished pieces. There were demonstrations throughout the course from the teacher, Jackie Summerfield who has 30 years of ceramic experience and specialises in portraiture, she was inspirational, patient and a lovely woman all round who guided us through the week. Here are a few pictures of some of her work that she has produced.

 

Jackie's website

 

During the week I made a life size portraiture head, three coiled pots and a bowl that I made using casting techniques. Before this experience I had never touched clay before and yet with help from Jackie I was able to create a body of work from my experience that I was very pleased with.

Here are some pictures of my work that I produced during the week!

 

 I was amazed at how much I learnt in such a short space of time, I found that by the time I had finished my sculpture I was ready to start another one and felt there were already so many things that I would do differently and felt I was ready to develop my skills further. I hadn't really thought about ceramic portraiture before the course but it is definitely something that I could like to continue, it was one of the most unforgettable experiences I have ever had and has truly inspired me to tap into many more skills and subject matters that I haven't tried yet.