Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Good, Bad, and Beyond


The wren on a branch tile turned out as I expected. Sometimes the kiln gods are favorable; and sometimes you have to take the good with the bad to learn something.


This is the second plate with the same clear glaze and it pitted and bubbled too, this glaze is rejected, It's been fired to Cone 5 and Cone 6 and still pits and bubbles. I don't have the time to devote to it. I do like the smeared, newspaper print look of the flowers and the splattered underglazes and plan to develop these glazing techniques more in the future.


I made this "She's Thinking" tray with sculpture clay which is what I had left in the motorhome. Therefore the surface is a bit rough. I put green slip and used sgraffito to draw the faces. Green slip turned black under matt clear glaze. Strange but somehow appealing. I'll make another of these three face pieces. The matt glaze isn't completely melted. This was fired to Cone 5 and I think this matt glaze needs Cone 6.


Here's the alphabet tray I also made with sculpture clay. Not the best clay to use for functional work. I like the impression the alphabets make in the clay, but they'd be better on a tall jar or box. I also like the melon color, the melon glaze developed mottled colors on this clay body. More testing for this one. I'm surprised at how good the flat trays feel in the hand when carrying them so I think this shape tray would be very functional.

Only two distributors have the 26 inch octagon half shelves in stock which I need for my new kiln. Either location has to ship them; they should be here next week; programmable firings coming up soon. Somehow I didn't complete my EZ cube order so it is now being shipped; improved photographs also coming up soon.

Tons of pieces are being bisqued: five serving bowls with four matching plates each; several more large bowls, six dipping bowls, a pie or cake plate, ten or so pinch pots, several sculptures and lidded boxes, tiles, test tiles, three large platters, a bird house, and one tiki jar. The other tiki jar with the seam facing the back of the closet separated at the seam and I just discovered it today. I also have more functional and tall sculptural pieces drying which need to be bisqued. I amazed myself making this list. Now I have a few empty shelves and ware boards I can make more. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

7 comments:

  1. Ooh...I really, really like that bird tile. It's so cool....

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  2. Hi Turquoisemoon, thanks so much.

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  3. Some cool experiments! I also like the bird and floral plate.... So, did you land somewhere permanently?

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  4. The bird tile is awesome and I just love the second plate! Great job!

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  5. Hi Cynthia, thanks, these are some of the pieces I made while we were traveling in our RV. We moved to central Florida on the gulf coast about an hour north of Tampa and bought a house which needs remodeling, which we said we weren't going to do, but we got what we could afford in a neighborhood we like with a pool.

    Hi Marguerite, thanks so much. The floral plate glaze bubbled, but I will be making more of them with a few more speckles in the colored dots.

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  6. It is nice to see some of the work glazed.

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  7. Hi Meredith, thanks, too bad it didn't come out better than I expected, more testing and more consistent clay and firing ahead.

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I love suggestions, questions, critiques, thanks for your comment