Who knew faceting could be so much fun?

Tomorrow is Lindsay's first day back to school with students, so I have been helping her set up her classroom for the past few days. I must say, she puts together a fantastic room that really looks like a great place to learn! When I wasn't helping her, going to work, sleeping, or eating, I was in the studio messing around with faceting bowls. I must say that I wish I tried this sooner--it is a ton of fun! I have to credit Tim See for giving me a boost to try it, as well as the Etsy Mud Team (a lot of the members saw Tim's video a while back and tried it before me). I faceted a couple of tumblers at the leather hard stage a while back, but I just tried Tim's technique several days ago. All you have to do is throw a fat wet cylinder, cut some facets, and push from the inside into the shape that fits.

(I do plan on cleaning this up at the bone dry stage)


In other news, I finally made it to the ceramic supply to buy some chemicals, although I don't have an ETA. I really can't wait to get to testing. Hmmm...I should really get some test tiles ready. I've been thinking of making cylinders and tying them on ropes to hang on the wall--I've grown tired of standard L shaped tiles. What kind of test tiles do you use?? Any really great recommendations?

Too much Bisque!

I am accumulating too much bisque work! I really need to get to work mixing some glazes, and I now have to go to my supplier and put in an order for dry chemicals on Monday. I had planned on doing this Thursday, but found out from my neighbor that we both need to move our fences because they go too far back onto the property behind us!!! Needless to say, I was totally pissed and didn't make it to buy glaze stuff. The markers we used were put up by the builder, and one of them fell onto a metal drainage grate, so the builder put it BEHIND the grate instead. So, when I built the fence last summer, I used a marker that was in the WRONG place!!


Anyways, back to clay.

I've been working on having a cohesive line of work, and I threw a few vases the other night to keep along with this line. Here is the best of the four which I will try to duplicate. I need to focus a little more on the top half, which is a little wavy, but other than that, I think that it works fairly well. What do you think?

Here are a couple of pics of all the bisqued work that I have been accumulating. I have some pieces glazed, but as I've said, I need to get some new glazes.

Next week I'm going to go put in the order, and who knows when I'll see my precious chemicals. I wish I lived a little closer to somewhere like Highwater Clays, so I could just go and pick everything up. I don't want to order online b/c shipping is a bitch! So, that leaves me with putting in an order with my supplier and waiting for them to stick it on their next order. Ah well, make more bisque I guess :)

How Mugs Turn Into Tumblers

So what happens when your mugs dry out too much to handle, but still able to be trimmed--just barely? They become tumblers! I through 15 mugs the night before last, trimmed and handled 10 last night, covered them with plastic, and sprayed them liberally with water. But they were still just barely soft enough to trim--not perfect for handling--at least not with this clay body which likes to crack.

So, now I've got some nice juice cups out of this batch, and who needs handles anyway?? I've seen some tumblers actually called 'handle-less mugs!' Maybe you can charge more for those....hmmm...great marketing!

Me and Lindsay went over to my sister's new house tonight for a big family dinner, and we had a great time. Got to see the newest nephew, and man he is just too funny! He is only a few weeks old and makes some interesting noises, but he is really very cute! Hopefully some time very soon, we will be on our way with our own little baby! Good night all--off to catch up on all of the many blogs I keep up with! I really need to insert all of the ones I've been reading into my blog roll. There's always tomorrow :)

Still Working Hard

I have been having the best time with this new line of work. My wife came out earlier tonight and said, 'your work finally has a common look.' It is what I have been trying to do for so long--have a cohesive lie of work that is easily distinguishable (I spelled that right on the first try :) I still need to find a good bowl form that works well with the cups and such. I have a teapot form that I want to try and a couple of pitchers and some other things to try. I still want to work with faceting some more work--it's funny that I have been trained to throw thin for so long, I am having trouble throwing thick enough to facet.


In other news--it is freakin' HOT!!! Heat index was 107 today, and it's supposed to hit 112 tomorrow! I was dying out in the studio tonight, but it was a blast anyways. The other problem with the heat is that my pots are drying super fast, and its hard to keep them at the right firmness. I had 15 cups to turn into mugs that I threw last night and covered tightly. I took them out tonight and left them covered loosely. Well, by the time I got 10 trimmed, the last 5 were too hard to trim and attach handles. I gave them a good spritz with the spray bottle and covered them really tight to absorb some more water. Hopefully they will at least be soft enough to trim tomorrow, and if handles don't work, they'll just become tumblers :)

I have been enjoying my carving experiments, and you really have to be really deliberate about the strokes and not hesitate at all or else the lines just look bad. My carvings aren't particularly impressive, but they are getting better. I am going to brush on decoration on the last 5 mugs instead of carving.

I can't wait to get back to throwing. The only bad part is that I am accumulating a ton of pots and still have no glaze for them. I also want to make a shopping list for glaze chemicals tomorrow and decide on some glazes to start mixing for testing.

Well, thats enough for tonight. I am really enjoying blogging again, and I'm going to really try to keep up better. So, night all!

A Couple of New Pots

I am still really enjoying making some new work, and I am still making some of the pieces that I sketched last week. I really like this new jar--the pitcher is nice, but not my favorite. I don't think that the foot works well. It seems a little too wide--or something. Anyways, something to keep working on I guess.

I have a predicament. I still really want to build my little kiln and start my attempt at soda firing with it, but I have lots of cone six pots in the works. I had debated a while back about mixing my own cone six glazes and seeing if I can get some better results in oxidation. But then I had the idea to build a converted electric and switch to cone ten soda--something that I am used to and already have recipes for. I would have to build the kiln at my work which isn't really a problem other than I would have to transport buisqued work about 35 min. away. I can fire while I work--working with my father does have its perks :)

The other problem with cone ten is that the kiln I was planning on using for the conversion is only a cone 8 electric. I don't know if it is even made with bricks that can go to cone ten. All I know so far is that it is a Paragon, about 7 cu. ft. and rated for cone 8. Anyone know if it will melt at cone 10?

So what I am now thinking is that I may start to mix my own glazes, but for cone six instead of ten and fire in ox. until I finish the soda kiln, then see how cone six soda works. If it doesn't do well, then I can go to cone ten if the kiln can handle it.

If anyone has any insight or recommendations to what I should do, or any experience with cone six in soda, I would love the input. Keith Phillips gave me some recommendations on cone six soda, but his experience was a little limited. Have a great weekend all!

Finally!!

I have not only been away from my blog for ages, but I have also been out of the studio for just as long. I haven't made any new work since before the cruise back over a month ago. My last post made it very clear that I was truly frustrated with not only my current work, but also glazes, firing, etc. I started doing something that I hadn't done in a long time--sketching! I started having ideas for new pots again, and it was like starting all over! The break will probably be good for me--it forced me to rethink what I had been doing with my work. Don't laugh at my sketches, but I thought that it might be nice to see where my work is coming from. I'm going to try to make all of the pieces that I have been sketching. As always, they get changed a little through the process, but the cups I made over the past two days have been pretty similar.



I found myself thinking not just about pots, but what I wanted my pots to represent; what style I wanted to represent my work and myself. I think that I had always wanted to do what many other studio potters are doing, imparting a loose quality to my work--a organic feel that really gives pots emotion. I am sad to say that I just don't think thats my style. Haha. I am just so drawn to clean lines and deliberate movements. Don't get me wrong, I don't want my pots to look machine made, but I also don't want them to have the loose quality that is such a staple of modern functional ceramics.



I still haven't solved my glazing crisis. I am working on getting my crap together to build my converted kiln. I finally got a book on burner building. I toyed with the idea of buying one of the conversion burner kits, but I really would like to do the whole thing myself. Kinda like a big experiment. (Hope I don't blow myself up) I'm going tomorrow to my ceramic supplier and I may pick up the kiln shell then. I am just about out of clay again. I think I might pick up some cone 10 stoneware to mess around with.


I made my first relatively successful attempt at faceting a pot tonight. I found that it is really critical to get the clay at just the right consistency. Too soft and it sticks to the cheese slicer, too hard and it just won't cut. It was fun, and I know that I'll do a lot of it in the future.


I also started carving a little bit in a few of these pieces. My wife Lindsay asked me to do it, and I think it worked out nicely. I was just going to get some iron oxide and brush it on in a similar pattern, or make some black slip, but the indentation will be nice. I may do an iron oxide wash in there and then glaze over that.

Anyways, I'm getting a little long winded, so I think I'll leave it at that.

Frustration

So, I haven't thrown anything new in several days now, and I'm going into withdraw. I have tons of stuff left to glaze, but I truly hate my glazes right now. They are all commercial cone six glazes, and I've had tons of trouble with pinholes. I have done everything suggested to me by my extremely helpful Mud Team, and none of it has worked--at least not consistently. Glazes that normally give no trouble at all came out terribly in the last firing. I basically have three glazes that work well, and I am sick of them.

The predicament that I have right now is that I am soon going to be changing to cone ten, and I really don't want to invest in a bunch of cone six glazes to finish up what I've already got bisqued. Then again, I can't waste all of this work that I've spent time, energy and money on creating. I guess I'll just have a bunch of stuff that all looks alike.

I'm still trying to get everything together for the kiln build--I'll call again tomorrow to pester them to get me what I want!! hehe. I am really anxious to get started experimenting!

In other news, I finally got a graduated background for taking images, and it works pretty well. I will be building a homemade soft box for getting rid of some of the glare. Here's a couple of pics I took the other night while playing around.