No Sign In to Make Comments !

You can now make comments on my blog without signing in. I have updated my blog comment section, changing the requirements to make comments so anyone can make comments. Several people mentioned they can't remember sign in names and since our world is so busy I am hopefully making life a little easier for you.

Another online blog recommended not requiring a sign in on blogs to increase blog comments. So in the interest of sharing and increasing comments, which is why I started this blog in the first place, I am putting myself out there. If you wanted to make a comment about a previous post, but decided not to because of the sign in hindrance, please do so now. I'd love to hear from you.

I hope I'm not deluged with a ton of spam.

Paper Slip Transfer Onto Greenware

The other day I was at the 99 cent store and saw a syringe in the food basting department and was thinking it would be perfect for slip trailing, so I purchased one. I remembered reading an article by Paul Andrew Wandless about paper slip transfer onto green ware in Ceramic Arts Daily and decided to give it a try.

I drew a trio of daisies on a piece of paper (photo is the rejected first attempt). Then I rolled out a large piece of dark brown clay and set it aside. Then I filled the syringe with porcelain slip I had already made up. Next I outlined the drawing of the daisies with some porcelain slip.


I had forgotten to start with dry paper and only mist it when you want to transfer it, so the photo of the daisy drawing is of the one I had to reject as the wet paper was smearing the slip all over the place.

So I drew the trio of daisies again and outlined the drawing with slip and set it aside to dry. When the slip drawing was dry, I lightly misted the dark clay and turned the slip drawing over and placed it on the dark clay. Then I misted the back of the paper and started pressing down firmly with a sponge. I pulled up the paper to see if the slip was transferring and saw it wasn't so I misted the paper again. Again I pressed and slightly rubbed the drawing against the brown clay. I checked again and the slip had transferred to the clay.


Here's my feeble attempt at the transfer. Instead of daisies they look like dandelions. I was happy I even got some part of the drawing to transfer. As I was rubbing the paper to get the slip to transfer some of the brown clay transferred to the porcelain slip. Then some of the porcelain slip got on the background. I tried to wipe everything up and got even more smears. Even though I was using a syringe, the slip seemed to come out too thick in places. With practice I will get better at drawing with slip. It was kind of magical how the slip on the paper releases itself and transfers to the clay. All kinds of ideas come to mind on how to utilize this technique. Back to the drawing board.

Slip Trailing

5" tall x 1.5" wide

I'm continuing to make pieces for my first kiln load. Today I tried my hand at slip trailing. I wanted a high contrast against the dark clay, so I made some porcelain slip and experimented with it. Actually I painted the porcelain slip onto these green ware vessels.

6" tall x 4" wide

Can't wait to see how my dot and stripe vessels turn out. I'm really having fun experimenting with new techniques. Next, I'd like to try some more slip trailing using a bulb syringe or a slip trailing bottle.

New Clay and Lavender & Peach Harvest

Wheelbarrow with Red Haven Peaches

I've been harvesting my lavender and peaches here on my farm, Springville Lavender Gardens. So far I've picked 300 peaches from my one Red Haven peach tree. The tree is only 4 years old, I can't believe how many peaches it has and I thinned them too. I am planning on freezing any I don't sell. I'm also going to make a peach cobbler for a party this coming weekend. I didn't count the number of stems of lavender, but there were literally thousands.

Royal Purple Lavender with Vitex & Fuji apple tree

My clay hands got rusty in such a short time. I tried making a porcelain bowl a few days ago and it cracked terribly. I finally gave up and crushed it. Rather than fight the porcelain, I decided to switch to a new clay I wanted to try. Oh, I almost forgot I did succeed in making a porcelain spoon rest, but I don't like the form so I am revising it.

Hand built 1.75" tall by 9" wide

The new clay is called Cassius Basaltic. If there were small children around, I wouldn't leave this clay out since it looks just like chocolate candy when wet. It's dark brown when green, but fires almost black. I plan on glazing with a clear to maintain the black color. The charts say this is a Cone 5/6 clay, but I have read several comments from others who recommend only firing it to Cone 4. Here are a couple of bowls make with the new clay which aren't quite leather hard yet. This clay seems to dry very slowly. I guess that's a good thing compared to the porcelain which dried too quickly. I've made several other pieces with this new clay and they are drying.

Hand built 3.75" tall by 10" wide

Hopefully in the next week or so I can make enough pieces to fill my kiln to give it a test run, but my gardening chores are taking much of my time right now. This coming week is supposed to be well over 100 F so watering may take precedence.