Thursday - Glazing Pots

Thursday night I glazed some pots for the upcoming gas kiln firing.

The pot with the bumps on it (lower left) is made of craggy crunch, glazed with turner's red, the bumps were waxed, then it was dipped in Tom's clear.  It was Greg's glaze suggestion, but the finger marks are mine.

The four yunomi (tea bowls) (upper left) are porcelain (helios), glazed with spotted shino, the "notches" are waxed for emphasis, and the pots are sprayed with a rutile blush.

The "baby pots" (big group on right) are made from craggy crunch, some have white slip pours, all are dipped in spotted shino, Catherine's oribe poured on, rims dipped in Alfred blue, sprayed with rutile.  It's a lot of work for a little pot, but they do come out nice.

Glazed pots waiting for heat.

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The long and the short of it

Saturday I worked on that phoenix pot with the slightly dry neck.  I had wrapped the top lip with a wet paper towel and covered it with plastic from Thursday night until Saturday.  The wrapped part got nice and soft and I was able to flare out the lip but when I sliced it top to bottom, the neck pieces started separating.  Apparently it really was too dry when I assembled it.  I don't have any more pictures of it here, but I had to suture the neck to the body as well as the long cuts.  We'll see if the patient survives.

 Pot with the paper towel triage.

I sliced the pot I made before the dry one and when I made the first slice the piece was still rather wet so I wrapped it with a plastic tie and let it rest a while.  When I got back to it later it was actually more dry than I wanted to be, but I sliced.  It's hard to judge the moisture in Winter with the heat running.

Sliced and diced.

Close-up of the sutures near the bottom.

I also made 21 orangestone baby pots.

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2010-11-04 Thursday - New Work

I picked up some of my new work on Thursday and was very pleased with it.  It gets over-used, but:  Life is good.

The rest of the photos are here.

A lidded casserole...

...and some of the baby pots.

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2010-10-19 Tuesday - Glazing babies

Tuesday found me glazing all my "baby" pots for the gas kiln.  I like making these small pots since they are a nice change to the larger work I make.  People seem to like them since they are tiny pots treated just like their larger cousins.  I throw them in cone 10 clay, glaze them in the same styles I use on "regular sized" pots and fire them in the cone 10 reduction kiln just like the big boys.

Fun stuff.

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2010-10-13 Wednesday - Little Making

Wednesday night saw me making small pots.  A customer at the Barn Sale bought all of the small pots I had and needed a few more for bridal favors so I bent to the wheel and turned out some more.  I figured why stop at the required amount while I'm making them, so I made more for me.

I throw these "off the hump", meaning I put a large lump of clay (6-8 pounds) on the wheel and throw these on the top of the "hump" cutting each one off as it's finished.

Now, on to bisque, glaze, and cone 10 reduction firing for these babies (and I do mean babies, see the ball point pen I put in the shot for scale).

Baby pots.

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