I made another trip to the V and A last week. I had been hoping to do some drawing there but it was very cold. Even the people working in the galleries had hats, coats and gloves on. I find that little shard of sgraffito ware with the ladies head fascinating. It has confident fluid lines I can just imagine the potter sitting drawing through the slip.The peacock below is also wonderful he fills the bowl perfectly.
On Wednesday the boys returned to school and so I'm back at work again. There were pots waiting to be glazed so I got them into the kiln. It was quite nice to start with work coming out of the kiln today as all ready there is work at almost every stage.The two jugs below are from the clay excavated at the clay pit in Kent. I slatted the clay down and sieved it to remove the lumps of lime. It's a lot of work to then knead it all up. It is good to throw but it isn't compatible with my glaze. So far the glaze has splintered off the edges. So with these jugs I've used a commercial glaze. The good news is that clay, slip and glaze all look good. Though the clay burns through quite a lot. However, I've had this glaze in the back of a cupboard for years and the bad news is that the manufacturers don't make it any more.
I've got ideas for modifying my glaze but the problem only shows up on the curves like handles so it's quite a slow process to keep testing.
glaze issues can be so cruel...hope you figure it out easily :)) happy new year
ReplyDeleteLove the old birds and your new birds!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing those images from the V and A. I'm doing quite a bit of that scratching away of slip these days. I see a rabbit there in #9.
ReplyDeleteThe Kent clay looks very rich in color. Hope you get the glaze issue figured out. Love the jugs.