Bottle or Jug Form

Yesterday I made two more leaf plates brushed with stains of chartreuse and lobster. I used the left over pieces of clay to form what I thought was going to be another animal sculpture. At least that's what I planned on making, but clay often tells me what it wants to be and I go with the flow.

When I put the two sections together (in the middle) I found I really liked what I saw and decided to leave the piece as it was. Not sure if this is a bottle or jug form, or maybe a vase, I never know about the names of the forms; I just make them. I knew I liked the shape of this one. It's only four and a half inches tall.  Of course I immediately thought about making larger pieces shaped like this one.

Here are the two plates I made with fritted mason stains, chartreuse and lobster. I didn't think I liked such a bright (lobster) color for the leaves but as I brushed on the color I loved it. We shall see how these turn out. Clay work teaches me patience since it will be a week or more before I know how any of my experiments have turned out. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Testing Testing 1 2 3

Today's goal was to produce an organic dinnerware design utilizing texture materials from nature. I wanted the botanicals to have a watercolor effect different from my usual engobe paintings on raw clay.

Starting with mason stains and frit I mixed up three samples to test as colorants, leaf green, sage green, and hazelnut brown. I measured 1/2 cup of water in mason jars and added 1/4 teaspoon each of mason stain and frit 3134.

Botanical samples were gathered from my landscape: dried leaves, grasses, weeds, and evergreens The botanicals were impressed onto the slab of clay.

The three stains were brushed onto the botanical impressions. Then the slab was slumped onto the plate form to dry slowly.

My plan is to glaze this test plate with a transparent glaze after the bisque. Hopefully I'll end up with a dinnerware set for myself and perhaps others. We shall see how the fritted stains turn out after bisque and glaze firings. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Making Slip & Easy Hump Molds

To make slip I start off with scraps of my clay body and break them into as small of pieces as I can. I let them sit till they are bone dry.

I take them out of the bowl and put them in a ziplock baggy, seal it, and roll them till they are a very fine particle size.

I put the finely rolled clay back in a bowl and add water to cover the clay completely. If after several hours all the water is absorbed, add a little more water. At this point resist the urge to stir the mixture since this increases the amount of lumps. The idea is to end up with as smooth a mixture as possible.

I let the water and clay mixture sit till all the clay is evenly moistened, usually over night. The next day you can stir the mixture or usually I use a hand held mixer to blend up the slip mixture. Next I sieve the mixture and divide it up into pint sized containers with air tight lids.

Later I can use the slip as it is or add mason stains for colored slips. To mix in mason stains to a pint mixture (about a cup of slip) I start out with a teaspoon of mason stain and wet the mason stain in a small glass bowl with a bit of water. Then I add that to the container of slip till I think the color is good to my eye. Later I put a piece of tape on top of the jar of stained slip noting the amount of stain I have added for that particular color. For more details on mason stained slips click the link to Slip Slop Stain and Mixing Mason Stain Slips.

 Save those styrofoam trays which hold food from the grocery store, they make good hump or slump molds.

For these two plates I turned the trays over and rubbed them with Pam sprayed onto a paper towel. The Pam prevents the freshly rolled clay from sticking to the styrofoam and allows the plate to release more easily. For these two plates I rolled out a slab of clay and textured them.
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Then I draped them over the upside down styrofoam tray, let them firm up a bit then flipped them over and let them dry on a piece of wallboard till dry. Don't let the plates dry completely on the hump mold since the clay shrinks (contracts) as it dries and that may warp the plate. Once they were dry I sanded the edges with a green scrubby (wearing a mask). Dry clay is harmful to the lumg so please wear a mask. These two plates are in the kiln being bisque fired. Thanks for reading and for all your comments..

Mason Stains Found After 3 Years

Sometimes when you move, things disappear never to reappear again. But sometimes things disappear and miraculously appear. After three years of wondering what happened to all the mason stains I ordered in California, I finally know. I found them in an unopened box on the bottom shelf of my kiln cart. They were at the back hidden by posts and glaze mixing supplies. I also found two thermocouples. Doesn't say much for my organization skills. Ha. Nice to know I have them for my next studio. I mix mason stains in clay slip and brush designs on green clay. Then I bisque fire the pieces. Next they get a clear glaze and are fired again. For more details about the process I use to make the slip and mix the stains go to this link.

In other news our dryer broke. Gary looked on the internet to see what the trouble might be. It suggested it could be a fuse or the belt. The belt was tight so he got a new fuse and put it in and now it works again. The fuse was $21 but well worth it. It's supposed to get up to 100 here today, what happened to our Spring. Every time we've moved it's been really hot. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Slip Slop Stain

I've been wanting to experiment with some colored slips. I decided to try mason stains, since there is such a wide range of color choices. The perfect opportunity came when a green ware, palm tree sculpture I was moving fell on the floor. It was broken beyond repair. It took me forever making all those palm fronds and propping them up with crumpled pieces of paper bag. Boo Hoo! But it'll make the best slip, right?


I broke the sculpture up into a bunch of little pieces and laid them all out to dry out. One of my classmates walked by and was staring at the ware board of clay particles with a quizzical look. So I said to him (very seriously), "How do you like my sculpture?" He said, "Very nice, Linda". I replied, "I call it free form sculpture". He said, "OK, Linda". I didn't want to keep him in suspense so I told him what I was doing. Perhaps I should have just let him wonder. I took all the pieces of clay home to set them in the sun the next day to dry.


I usually mix up my slip with a large metal tablespoon. This time I wanted my slip to be real smooth, so after I let the dry clay slake in water, I took the bowl outside and mixed it up with my hand held mixer. It came out real creamy. Notice my professional looking cardboard box table top on the gravel driveway. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I wanted to get this mixed up today. I sure wasn't going to mix it inside, clay would have splattered everywhere.


I am calling the 'real', scientific method of measurement I'm using a slip slop stain. I make up some slip, I slop it into a container and I add some stain. It's not quite that haphazard, but it isn't weighed either. I am using a type of volumetric measurement described recently in Ceramic Arts Daily.


In the article Sumi Von Dassow recommended using 2 tablespoons of stain for 8 ounces of glaze. That's about 12 percent stain. I want to try 5 percent and 10 percent stain in my slip. One cup of slip is 48 teaspoons or 16 tablespoons. Five percent of stain would be 0.8 tablespoons or 2.4 teaspoons and ten percent of stain would be 1.6 tablespoons or 4.8 teaspoons. I read when firing Cone 10, I should need less stain than I would at Cone 6, the opposite of what I would normally think. A higher temperature makes a brighter color with less stain. I know I'm putting the stains in slip not glaze, we'll see what happens.


Surely Jane Peiser and Vince Pitelka would cringe at my slip slop stain description and methods, but we all have to start somewhere with our experiments and I am beginning here. I will be testing Sky Blue, Ivy, and Best Black, mason stains. I am adding these to my porcelain slip and I will be firing to Cone 10. I may also try the same stains on my Soldate 60 stoneware body to see how they react with that clay body. I also want to try come colored clay inlays too. Whoh! That's a whole lot of experiments.


If you have any advice or experience using stains, please share. What do you store your small batches of slip in? I've got some small plastic containers I purchased in a pack of three and some larger ones I picked up at the dollar store. If I don't run out of time and slip, I'll also try some Copper Carbonate, Copper Oxide and Red Iron Oxide combos too.


Now that I've written all about the mixtures I'll be making, I better get off my d**f - uh, garden bench - and get busy making my slip slop stain. Look for more experiments in the future with Frit 3134 and some Nickle Oxide? Comments and advice are always welcome, this mad scientist can use all the help she can get. Toodles for now.