Slip Plate Results

The garden bench plate is speckled stoneware with a clear shiny glaze over the top. Both this and the butterfly plate came out fine. I read on another blog where they used cannned goods to hold up plates to photograph them. It works really well.


Unfortunately I tried a Duncan clear glaze over these and that glaze is discontinued, so I'll have to do more experiments with a shiny glaze. I do like the slip work on the speckled surface, so I'll be working with this clay some more. This is the same clay I used for the scallop shell bowl and it does nice things to glaze.


The textured fun platter above is made with terra cotta clay and has a matt glaze and it is cloudy. Yet the three slipped plates pictured further along aren't cloudy. Some of the slip colors burn out with the matt glaze, they seem to react with the clay and glaze. With the dragonfly platter I used the shiny clear glaze and the slip colors stayed true.



This plate had an air bubble come to the surface, I've never had one of those, interesting to see, glad it didn't explode, just an half inch long top surface crack which doesn't go through to the bottom.



Luckily I saved one terra cotta plate out of the firing so I can try a different glaze on that one. I am having some of the same issues with warping on plates that I did with my cone 10 plates. The thinner plates without rims seem to warp more. Although the fun textured platter rim warped. The fern trays are flat and thicker and there was no warping. Also my cheese trays (not shown) did not warp. Those were also thicker.



My fern trays were not cloudy; they were fired in two different loads. Position in the kiln didn't seem to matter to results. I used porcelain sand under all the plates, platters, and trays. For this firing cone packs for all three shelves were almost exactly the same. The middle of the kiln fired slightly hotter than the top and bottom, but just barely. I alternated shelves side to side with space in the middle. Comments and suggestion are welcome.

Slip Decorating Butterflies

Last night I thought about embellishing the butterflies on the wall pocket I slipped yesterday. So I started out practicing with an outline of a butterfly drawn on a scrap of paper. I practiced with the three different colors of slip I made: ivy green, sky blue and best black. I made the colored slip by mixing mason stains into slip which was made from the same clay body I have used for the pieces I created.


For the outline of the butterfly on the wall pocket, I used stickers I purchased from the dollar store. I got the idea of using stickers from Lori's blog, Fine Mess Pottery. I place the stickers where I want the clay color to remain, then I paint the colored slip over the whole piece. When the slip dries, I peel off the sticker and put it back on the paper it came on. I found out I can wipe the slip off the sticker and re-use the sticker. Talk about recycling.


As I was embellishing the butterflies, I was wishing I had more colors to play with, maybe yellow or orange, but I want to see how these colors turn out before investing in any more colors. Very little slip is needed to paint the lines and circles on the butterflies which means the slip will last a very long time. I think my painting on paper is better than it is on the clay, but I like the butterflies on the wall pocket better than just the plain white color of the clay showing through.

What do you think about my just putting clear glaze on the inside of the pocket and leaving the outside slipped but not glazed? That way water could be put inside but the outside would remain the muted color it is now? Of course, I don't really know what the Cone 10 temperature will do to the color, it may be a lot darker when it gets fired or it may burn out or flake off. Hope not though.


While I was working in my studio, I created quite a mess with paint brushes, tubs of slip, paper bowls with more slip in them, and on and on. I guess sometimes you have to make a mess to be creative. As I was painting away, a huge squall of rain, sleet, and hail was erupting outside.


When I left the studio I saw Black Mountain has snow down to the 2,000 foot elevation. The top of Black Mountain is obscured by clouds. Black Mountain has one of the finest groves of Giant Sequoia throughout the range of Big Trees. From my house I can see the outline of the Giant Sequoia trees on the top of Black Mountain even though the mountain is about five miles away. That gives you an idea of the size of these trees. To visit the Giant Sequoias is a very humbling and awesome experience. My elevation is 1,000 feet, I wonder if we will have any snow in the morning?