Saturday, August 15, 2009

2009-08-12 Wednesday Studio Time

Went to the studio on Wednesday night to get some things done. I slaked and mixed my reclaimed porcelain (helios) using the drill with the mixer blade. Once I got that done and cleaned up the mess, I got to work.

A week before I had thrown another one of the stretched pots with sodium silicate on it using chrome green slip and I pulled that out to check on it's drying progress. It was a lot wetter than I thought it would be after a week on the shelf. That plastic really seals the moisture in sometimes. I let it sit out for a while and then wrapped it more loosely when I put it back.

I started out with ~9 lbs of orangestone and threw the next pot. After trying to pull it up as tall as possible and trimming, it's probably got 7 to 8 lbs left in it. I used the technique that Andy Smith taught us of pulling up in thirds: Get the walls even, then pull up the top third of the pot, followed by the middle third, and then the bottom third. It works really well to get the most height out of your cylinder and I'm becoming more comfortable with it. Thanks Andy!

I was surprised at how far I could push the sides out in relation to how thin I had pulled the walls. Let's see if it makes it through the rest of the process.

While making this pot the throwing lines and the shape made me think about paper lanterns. I think I want to try a series of pots based on paper lanterns. I have lots of different underglaze colors with which to decorate them so they could be very interesting to explore. Wish me luck.


That pot is GREEN.


Detail of the crackling.


Inspiration for the paper lantern series.

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