Making the large figurative vase the other day gave me some inspiration and ideas for sculpture. It is quite some time since I made any sculptural work .. one or two didn't work out but these are the keepers for now:
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| Length 8in |
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| Height, 8 ins |
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| Height, 6 ins |
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| "King for a day". Bisqued clay, 6 ins tall. |
I'm not sure how these rough textures will look fired..the problem is always how to achieve the right colour without adding glazes which may adversely affect the texture. Last week I "discovered" a new way to apply ash to bisqued clay; by mixing raw, sieved ash about 55/45 with plain flour and water to make a kind of gluey paste. This can be poured inside forms or brushed on the outside and once dry, the flour-ash mixture forms quite a hard, durable surface:
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| Pot with wood ash- flour coating |
The other day I fired this mixture to cone 10 on a couple of test pieces in the electric kiln and it worked reasonably well, although the colours were quite pale and muted, being an oxidation firing. This weekend I am firing the wood kiln with the Manor Stokes team and will also test it on a few pots. I'm excited to see how they will turn out.
Very disappointed with the way Blogger has uploaded these B&W jpeg images..they are completely different to the originals; over-exposed and the background has a kind of interference effect going on! They look much, much better in
flickr. It's as though the exposure adjustments I made in Photoshop have been stripped out of the images. This has never happened before, and I wonder if Blogger is now compressing images to save on storage space..hmmmm.
Thanks for reading.
The texture are wonderful on these...and very expressive. I like them all but love the first one. All very nice.
ReplyDeleteThe wood ash/ flour mix sounds promising. It already looks good in oxidation. A wood fire will definitely deepen the color.
I know what you mean about BLogger.
Sometimes I bump up contrast tone down highlights. But does seem a hit miss thing
I also resize so the photos to load faster. It wouldn't surprise me in the least that they may compress blogs with no ads too.
Thank you, Charlene, for all your positive comments. I am getting back into sculpture and modelling after a long break and very much enjoying the creative freedom. :) About the photos, I find it very strange..even the colour pic seems very grainy and washed out. I've never had any problems like this before in Blogger! So I may try using smaller photos in future too, see if that helps.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy reading your posts because you keep experimenting! Ash flour mix! I have mixed ash with feldspar and brushed it on bisque. It was really easy. My favourite is the second image. I like the shape and texture! Very nice!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Midori! I only did a couple of small test tiles for the ash-flour mix..not sure yet how it will behave on a larger pot. I'll find out today! :)
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