I'm sorry it's been such a long time since I posted here. That's mainly because the last fourteen months have been the hardest and saddest of my life. I'm doing my best not to dwell on past events and am hoping that 2019 will be a better year, both personally and creatively. Having said that, I doubt I'll have alot of spare time this year for writing lengthy blog posts, so I thought I'd just focus on posting images of recent pieces with a few explanatory notes.
The following are some of the more unusual pots I made in 2018:
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| Vase, height approx 10 inches |
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| Vase, height approx 9 inches |
The two vases above were experiments which worked surprisingly well. I discovered that pre-fired pieces of broken clay can be pushed through the soft walls of the piece and that they stay firmly in place when fired. Even more remarkable that as the pieces dried, no cracks appeared around the inclusions, neither did they appear after firing to stoneware temperature, cone 6-8. Both these pieces were built up from thrown sections, hence the somewhat asymmetrical profiles.
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| Large, handbuilt vase, height 15 ins |
This large, square vase was handbuilt using small, irregular slabs of clay squeezed together and a deep texture added at leatherhard. This is a technique I would like to develop more in future as it allows a huge amount of freedom in the forms you can create.
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| Textured bottle vase, height approx 5 inches |
Above is another handbuilt piece formed from hand-pinched slabs. White and black slips were brushed on and a dry, ochre ash glaze poured over. I like the effect and colours produced where the ochre glaze has accidentally strayed over the inner dolomite glaze, so I plan to layer these glazes on some future work.
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| Small bud vase |
I've included this little vase as I thought the shape was quite interesting.. it went slightly off centre on the hump and I liked the way the rim dips at one point..
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| Small, carved vase |
The matt ochre ash glaze on this carved piece came out darker than I expected as it was a new batch and went on very thick. It contains about 40% raw wood ash so tends to deflocculate hugely after a few days.. I still like it alot, but I do find that brown pots aren't the easiest to sell these days!
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| Textured vase, approx 6 ins height |
This textured vase was fired twice and the second time (after adding more glaze), it came out exactly as I had hoped. I deliberately left alot of the deep texture with black slip showing, and it is quite difficult to judge how the piece is going to look as the glaze runs a great deal.
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| Textured salt pig |
This piece was also hand built using small slabs. A thick texture was applied plus black slip and a dolomite and wood ash glaze.
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| Lidded jar, height approx 6 inches |
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| Textured vase, height approx 6 inchews |
Another textured vase, this time slips and glazes were applied in bands before a final layer of dolomite and wood ash glaze.
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| Textured vase, height approx 3.5 inches |
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| Pressed dish, approx 7 ins width |
This dish was made by pressing a slab of clay over a bisqued former. the edges of the clay were left deliberately irregular. Decoration was wax resist with black slip brushed on before a second bisque firing. A small foot was also added at the leather hard stage which just gives the form a bit of a lift and stability.
I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my work, thanks for your visit!
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Never give up, the best is yet to come.
