The first week of classes in fall 2025 has gone well, all things considered! The first round of assignments is always a bit stressful. I have all art classes this semester, so in some ways the load feels lighter. I’ll always choose a difficult art assignment over easy math homework. At the same time, I decided to take 18 credits of 3-hour art classes so… uh… yeah, that’s self-explanatory. The nice thing about the workload is that I’ll have plenty to post about over the semester! I’m taking sculpture and ceramics, so I’ll go through the projects I’ve started so far in those classes and the assignments they’re each made for.

So far, I’ve started three things in ceramics. I started off how I usually do. I made a tiny creature! This time, I decided I wanted to make a little slug. I’m thinking about making a big snail at some point, so it’s good practice. I also just like making small things… whoops. So after my little slug, I started the first assignment. We have to make a Japanese tea bowl. He gave us a sheet with different possible shapes. Me being me, I started hand-building the bowl, and picked the one with a stand, so it was way more difficult than it needed to be. It really isn’t too bad for a hand-built bowl, honestly. I’m very happy with it. With the advent of AI, I’ve become more and more focused on my style being visibly human. I love leaving my sketch lines visible and showing my process. I’m trying to do something similar with some of my clay work. Leaving it a little jagged in places, not perfectly smooth everywhere. My hand-built tea bowl was bound to be a little lumpy and wiggly in spots. Might as well leave it as a clear testament to my humanity.

I’m also taking sculpture this year. I’m delighted to get to work with many different mediums, some of which I haven’t ever worked with before. Our first sculpture will be made with wood. It needs to be made up of basic shapes, but, as usual, the sketches I made were a little too complicated. I’m also very adverse to working abstractly. It’s just not how my brain works. I like to depict something recognizable when I make art. So my initial 3 sketches are pictured here. I was very sold on the unicorn, but the professor wanted me to calm down the detail at least a bit.

My next sketch was a bit less detailed, but still a unicorn 🙂 I’ve started him roughly, but it’s rough enough that I don’t have a picture. Rest assured, by the next blog post, he’ll be finished. I do have a picture of my other work in progress in ceramics, however.

That’s where I’m at so far! I’m confident by two weeks from now, I’ll have even more done to share! That’s all for now, though. More to come!