Wednesday 25 January 2017

Bird bowls, new shapes and a cat bowl

I am trying to increase my collection of bird bowls, with the annual Bird Show in mind.



Strangely (for me) I have made a cat bowl. Shock, horror! Ah, but it is a commission! It is very satisfying to be asked to make something and paid money for it.
I thought I would try a second bowl with the combination of tenmoku, hyacinth and satin white. Just to see if the results varied greatly from the previous time I tried this out. Pretty much the same.

Next up, a couple of vase experiments. These are small, made from only 600 grams of clay.

Stay tuned for current projects...pendants with pooling glaze, bird mobiles and mist sprayed glaze using an atomizer.

Monday 2 January 2017

Disasters and solutions

Shiny new wheel, so much fun I thought. Ah, but frustration set in. Not only was centering driving me INSANE but the thing that happened only to other people had started happening to me. The clay was sliding off before I even got going. What the heck?! So I had a good long think after trying to be persistent for a week or two. What was I doing differently? Hmm. Well at the studio I had been forcefully throwing the clay onto the wheel. Was I doing that here? No. Why not? I'm not sure, but I think a combination of things led to this. I had watched a youtube clip where someone said you don't need to throw it, just press it on. (Hey, I thought, this will make it easier to get it centered before I even start.) Secondly, I think I figured the shiny new wheel would grab the clay better. Ah no, probably it was actually less likely to grab it as it is in fact shiny and new.

As for the centering going worse than ever before (it's always been my weak point) well I had been telling myself I should use up the old half used bag of clay that had been sitting in my cupboard for ages before I started on the nice fresh new bag. Sure, it seemed a big harder than usual but it made sense to finish it first. Oh no, bad idea. Having just broken into the new bag, well what a difference.

So here I was this morning, new SOFT clay, throwing the clay forcefully onto the wheel and thirdly, just for luck, using a smaller piece of clay than I have been lately (bigger pieces are still a challenge.) I literally just threw an almost perfectly centred bowl in MINUTES.

I'm heading back to the wheel. Wish me luck. Here are some pics of my latest stuff.