Years ago a friend gave me this poem she cut out of the paper. It's the only one I've seen about a kiln. Hopefully if you click on it you can read it!
I need to make mugs this week so I am thinking about how I will decorate them. The pictures show some mugs that I made some years ago that we use at home. I was never sure if I liked them and they took quite a long time to make by the time I had applied all those strips of clay. I am not going to pursue that idea but do some with sgraffito decoration. I threw a few on Tuesday to think about shapes and today I threw several more.
These are small lidded pots from the last firing. I've been packing fired work away to create as much room as possible in the studio.
I started back in the studio yesterday and found that I still had a few things under polythene. I decided I would finish these domes for butter dishes as their bases are all ready in the kiln! There were also a few other things to finish so I haven't yet done any throwing. I am looking forward to throwing tomorrow. I finished a bit early today-about 4 o'clock so I thought it was a bit late in the day to start throwing so I embarked on a few studio chores. Firstly, I slopped out a pile of reclaimed clay onto the plaster slab. I then decide to investigate the cly trap-after all I haven't looked at it for ages. UGhhh, it was very smelly and nearly full. Not too sure what to do with this clay-should I reclaim it, if my nostrils can come with the stench? I don't think I've ever got so messy good job there was nobody about to photograph me.
Our local library is very small and has very restricted opening hours. It doesn't have even one pottery book on it's shelves. However, it offers a brilliant service in that for £3 it will get any book you may want. They are quite used to getting pottery books for me. This latest book was specially bought for me to borrow by Hampshire. When it came the local librarian seemed very dissappointed and was quick to inform me that she could send it back as it didn't have any colour pictures.
These illustrations are facinating as you get to see exactly what the pot is 'doing'. How thick the walls are, where the walls change direction, how the foot is constructed. Wonderful!
These are a few pots in the studio today. The jug is one I made when demonstrating to my students and so I have used it to test my green glaze. It is now almost as I want it. It looks deeper if I use the green slip underneath. Will try that next before I go ahead with a batch of pots.
Today I have been back to decorating pots. Michele over at NOLA Potter asked me what tools I used so here they are. I used to use an ordinary pencil and still do for some lines but it gets tedious sharpening it all the time. So now I use a propelling pencil as I get through the leads quite quickly. I also use a nail set in a piece of dowelling and a hair grip for wider lines. The hair dryer is vital as it's important not to touch the surface of the pot when there are loose bits of clay on the surface so I just blow them off with the hair dryer. ( If you saw my hair you would see a hair dryer couldn't possibly help it!)
I have been doing some decorating in our lounge. Not my favourite occupation but when I took the old fireplace out it became apparent that I would need to decorate the whole room!! The wood burning stove is now installed and fully functioning.
I usually try to get a good opaque layer of slip onto my pots to provide a 'canvas' on which to decorate. It can also get the best colour response with the oxides. However, I had an order for a butter dish so I made two. Normally the things we keep at home are the pots that perhaps aren't perfect. But I liked this butter dish so much I've kept it. The slip is quite thin in places so the colours are very soft and faded looking. I've made a batch of seven or eight as a result but they are all under plactic and newspaper for the week-end.
My studio is getting a bit cluttered at the moment. I usually like to keep it fairly organised. There is work at different stages all over the place. The bowl with the oak leaf came out of the kiln today. I am just working on this shape and design as it's a lot less labour intensive then other work I produce. I set my students the task of making four matching soup bowls so it made me think about making some myself. We are going to get together for a meal using them as soon as everyone has completed the task.
This fish bowl also came out of the kiln today. I have been really enjoying working on these as I am able to use a whole range of decorating techniques on each one. Apart from the sgraffito I have used wax and latex resist and some sponging. Each bowl takes a whole day to decorate so I may be getting too carried away with the process-it certainly is very absorbing.
