Pottery Update
I'm still taking pottery classes. Still loving it. All the stuff that I showed in process has now been fired in the high fire kiln (which can only be used when it's cool enough outside to make it safe to have something going that hot).
I've now completed:
These are my thrown items that have now been fired:
The high fire kiln at work. It gets up to 2200-2300 degrees F. On the left is the low-fire kiln.
My plates!
This turtle was SO COOL...but kiln debris fell on and ruined the visibility of the turtle.
The cute kitty on the left is flattened (I dropped it by accident). The cute kitty on the right...well...he cracked in two places across from each other, so he can't be used for liquid.
See? Footprints in the bottom of the kitty mugs!
I love this little Winnie-the-Pooh honey pot.
This is one of my early cylinders that "flopped" ...but I liked the shape and it's very cute. This is the "Frank" glaze, and it is brown with one coat and gets whiter and lighter with a second coat (same as on the little pot above).
I love that these fortuitously match.
Hand-built items:
I had posted these flopped vessels when they weren't glazed yet, but here they are. :-)
This is the set of six I want...but I still have to convince them not to crack: the bottwom two (the ones on the right) have hairlines in them...and so I've got to do them AGAIN.
These are made with a rolled-flat slab of white stone clay which is then put into a plate form on top of plastic and dropped to make it take that shape. I then press into them the stencils I made by glueing yarn onto printouts of these patterns (glued the yarn down, then secured it with more Elmer's glue to make it stiffer and hold its form). Then I have to smooth the entire thing over and over with rubber tools until it's effectively even and doesn't show the shape of the yarn. Then it's fired to bisque, then painted with 2 layers of underglaze. When those dry, I sand off the top bits (like doing a rubbing), then glaze over that with a finishing glaze.
I love these. Unfortunately, I've got hairline cracks in the three at the bottom: the 2 purple simple spirals and the one olive green modified Cretan labyrinth. Those can be used for cookies or just setting out a plate, but not for food-food.
One of my stamps and a couple of sgraffito turtles: They have a layer of green slip painted on, then an image carved in through the slip.
One of my name stamps, designed by Juli. I love it, but it's too big for thrown items.
I decided that I LOATHED that brown glaze over the terra cotta clay. The green one, though...I like how it turned out.
The greenware form. This is the terra cotta clay; it works best with my hands and doesn't dry out after I touch it for a few moments like the white stone does.
Glazed after it was bisqued.
I LOVE my pumpkin! He's made from two terra cotta pinch pots that were then smoothed together, then the top cut out and the whole thing smooothed and the face cut. The face lit up is below.
My other name stamps are visible here: the simple spiral and my initals written in lower-case with a swirl under them.
New thrown vessels:
My first attempts at collaring. I twisted the vase (which looks cool, but was not the task), and ran out of clay to join the open vessel at the right. The stupid candlestick thing...cool to *do*...but not very *useful*.
My first correctly-closed collared vessel. It looks, appropriately, like a Hershey's Kiss!
Here it is opened (above) and with the lid shown offset (below).
Trimming the vase...looks like chocolate shavings!
And here they are, trimmed, and the left vessel opened and a gallery made to rest the lid in. These three, plus the other open vessel above, are all bisqued and have been waxed and dipped to make it ready to go in the kiln. I've gotten to use new glaze; this spring and summer, the rutile wasn't mixed, but now it is. I'm excited to see how these turn out!
I threw these, opened them, then collared them: started closing them up at the top. The two in the back (above) or front (below) are fully closed. The other one I ran out of time to encourage it to close so I opened it back up into a nice potbellied vessel.
As you can see on the right, that one got VERY wet and almost caved in. I barely got it to close without collapsing.
After these had leathered to be harder, I trimmed them and cut a gallery in them so that the lid could come down and settle in to the portion of the vessel below. On the left, you can see the vessel with the lid already in the lower part of teh vessel. In the middle, you can see the gallery carved out and ready to be cut after it dried more.
Here is that middle one, fully trimmed and with the lid settled in.
These are the other two after trimming was completed.
I've now completed:
- a set of cylinders
- a set of 6 matching mugs with pulled handles
- a set of 6 matching plates
- a trio of vessels where you open the vessel and then collar it closed at the top to make a lidded item
These are my thrown items that have now been fired:
The high fire kiln at work. It gets up to 2200-2300 degrees F. On the left is the low-fire kiln.
My plates!
This turtle was SO COOL...but kiln debris fell on and ruined the visibility of the turtle.
The cute kitty on the left is flattened (I dropped it by accident). The cute kitty on the right...well...he cracked in two places across from each other, so he can't be used for liquid.
See? Footprints in the bottom of the kitty mugs!
I love this little Winnie-the-Pooh honey pot.
This is one of my early cylinders that "flopped" ...but I liked the shape and it's very cute. This is the "Frank" glaze, and it is brown with one coat and gets whiter and lighter with a second coat (same as on the little pot above).
I love that these fortuitously match.
Hand-built items:
I had posted these flopped vessels when they weren't glazed yet, but here they are. :-)
This is the set of six I want...but I still have to convince them not to crack: the bottwom two (the ones on the right) have hairlines in them...and so I've got to do them AGAIN.
These are made with a rolled-flat slab of white stone clay which is then put into a plate form on top of plastic and dropped to make it take that shape. I then press into them the stencils I made by glueing yarn onto printouts of these patterns (glued the yarn down, then secured it with more Elmer's glue to make it stiffer and hold its form). Then I have to smooth the entire thing over and over with rubber tools until it's effectively even and doesn't show the shape of the yarn. Then it's fired to bisque, then painted with 2 layers of underglaze. When those dry, I sand off the top bits (like doing a rubbing), then glaze over that with a finishing glaze.
I love these. Unfortunately, I've got hairline cracks in the three at the bottom: the 2 purple simple spirals and the one olive green modified Cretan labyrinth. Those can be used for cookies or just setting out a plate, but not for food-food.
One of my stamps and a couple of sgraffito turtles: They have a layer of green slip painted on, then an image carved in through the slip.
One of my name stamps, designed by Juli. I love it, but it's too big for thrown items.
I decided that I LOATHED that brown glaze over the terra cotta clay. The green one, though...I like how it turned out.
The greenware form. This is the terra cotta clay; it works best with my hands and doesn't dry out after I touch it for a few moments like the white stone does.
Glazed after it was bisqued.
I LOVE my pumpkin! He's made from two terra cotta pinch pots that were then smoothed together, then the top cut out and the whole thing smooothed and the face cut. The face lit up is below.
My other name stamps are visible here: the simple spiral and my initals written in lower-case with a swirl under them.
New thrown vessels:
My first attempts at collaring. I twisted the vase (which looks cool, but was not the task), and ran out of clay to join the open vessel at the right. The stupid candlestick thing...cool to *do*...but not very *useful*.
My first correctly-closed collared vessel. It looks, appropriately, like a Hershey's Kiss!
Here it is opened (above) and with the lid shown offset (below).
Trimming the vase...looks like chocolate shavings!
And here they are, trimmed, and the left vessel opened and a gallery made to rest the lid in. These three, plus the other open vessel above, are all bisqued and have been waxed and dipped to make it ready to go in the kiln. I've gotten to use new glaze; this spring and summer, the rutile wasn't mixed, but now it is. I'm excited to see how these turn out!
I threw these, opened them, then collared them: started closing them up at the top. The two in the back (above) or front (below) are fully closed. The other one I ran out of time to encourage it to close so I opened it back up into a nice potbellied vessel.
As you can see on the right, that one got VERY wet and almost caved in. I barely got it to close without collapsing.
After these had leathered to be harder, I trimmed them and cut a gallery in them so that the lid could come down and settle in to the portion of the vessel below. On the left, you can see the vessel with the lid already in the lower part of teh vessel. In the middle, you can see the gallery carved out and ready to be cut after it dried more.
Here is that middle one, fully trimmed and with the lid settled in.
These are the other two after trimming was completed.