Saturday 23 March 2019

Large textured vase

A few more shots of the large textured vase, height 16 inches:


I've kept the wadding underneath this piece (it was welded to flashing from shells anyway) to allow for the drip of glaze which touched the shelf. I like the way it looks as though it's hovering slightly..

Thanks for your visit.

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Monday 18 March 2019

Back to saggar firing

Recently I designed a new single-piece saggar to use in the electric kiln. It doesn't require kiln fibre to seal the top so is much easier and less messy to use and seems to be airtight in use. This shino-glazed guinomi was fired twice, once in the saggar (with charcoal) to reduce the surface and once in oxidation to bring the colour back to the iron. The glaze was applied fairly thin and the iron-rich slip (china clay/ball clay plus 50% red iron oxide) has burned through, creating very dark colours and an unusual, wrinkled surface. It's still surprisingly pleasant to drink from!



And here are a few closeups of a large, heavily textured vase I have fired three times with different dolomite glazes added. This time I'm pretty happy with the glaze surface, especially the drips which contain some lovely colours. I'll post a shot of the full piece soon..




Also fired last week, another textured vase with some pleasant crawling going on:


Yesterday I tried out some carving on the outside of these small hand-pinched bowls. I've done this on sculptures before but not on a functional piece. This is in its raw clay (a smooth crank) state with slip added to the surface, and I plan to just glaze the inside:



Thanks for reading!

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Never give up, the best is yet to come