Working in a Real Artist's Studio in Madrid!

The whole concept of spending time "abroad" usually calls to mind visits to world-class museums, platters of authentic local food, and tours touching upon all the local monuments, landmarks, and other attractions. At CIEE, we do all of the above and more. We also turn the city inside out and get to know the locals, the craftsmen, what they do, and how they, too, make the city tick.

Students met Madrid-born ceramicist and painter, María, in the same neighborhood where she lives, works, and uses her studio to teach student groups like ours. In this particular workshop, she explained to us how to paint ceramic mugs, 100 hundred percent in Spanish.

You can, for example, layer colors on top of one another ("capas"), but it's important to remember that each layer acts like a sheet of glass. If you layer purple on top of yellow, for instance, you'll get brown! It's also worth noting that after having been baked in the oven ("el horno") a couple times, the colors of the finished mug may not look exactly the same as they did while painting.

Keeping María's advice in mind, students got to work decorating their mugs ("tazas") to their hearts' desire. Afterwards, María showed us how to glaze ("esmaltar") the mugs. Using pincers, they must be dipped into a bucket of glaze ("esmalte") and held for three seconds. However, the mugs can't be submerged nor taken out too quickly, or else the glaze will splatter and affect the texture of the mug. A student or two learned this the hard way!

In the dry Madrid heat, the wet glaze dries in a matter of seconds, and students can then hold the mug in one hand to scrub off the base ("la base") clean with a sponge. If not, the mug will stick to the oven and be rendered unusable!

At the end of the workshop, some students even had the chance to play around with María's pottery wheels. Mugs will be baked and ready for pickup next week--a madrileño memory that will last CIEE students a lifetime!