a way to express yourself

I would say art is considered to be a way of expressing oneself in any way, shape, or form. Art is a big part of my life because I use it daily, such as singing or dancing. I also enjoy hands on art such as painting and sculpting pottery.  In high school, I took a class for ceramics where you were given a simple wedge of clay for each project and you were expected to build a masterpiece out of it. I usually did an average Joe job for my projects and tried to make my pieces perfect, but it just never seemed to work out for me. Then my teacher told us we were going to create a mug with a design of our choosing. I thought long and hard on what I could sculpt my mug into. I looked up some designs in the sample books and online, and then one image hit me especially hard. I was going to do an awesome mug with a Hawaiian tiki face on it. When I started to roll out the clay and build my mug, I had a great feeling about the outcome of this project. I used applique to attach the big rectangle nose, eyes, eyebrows and designs on its face, carved many intricate tribal designs all over the mug, and attached the perfect handle. After every piece was put on the mug, I started to add the effect that made the clay look like old, gnarled wood. I gave my half-finished piece to my teacher so she could fire it in the kiln. I waited a few days after for it to be ready to do the next step in the process. Once out, I painted the piece with fierce, bright colors that really blended well together. Then I added shoe polish to give it that old, ancient look and BAM, my mug turned out to be a masterpiece. My teacher loved it and even put it on display for the whole school to walk past and marvel at.