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What's Your Favorite Clay To Work With?


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Highwater Phoenix. 

 

The thing is, Phoenix is for cone 10+ firings. I fire my studio work to cone 6, so I only get to work with Phoenix when I am participating in a cone 10 firing outside of my studio. It is such a treat to throw. It does whatever is asked of it.

 

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curious about your question. what do you mean.  throwing? handbuilding?

 

i  am still a wet behind the ears student so go nowhere near porcelain.

 

like food, unfortunately i dont have one favourite clay. (that might be a student answer though).

 

^10 - somehow i have enjoyed with most ^10 clays i have worked with. they throw well and handbuild well too. i like the surface. 811 buff, Soldate 60, Sierra Gold.

 

^5/6 for forms i want to play with after throwing - Laguna Redstone (might be my fav. i love how it feels. because it has fine grog it dries differently making it more malleable. i also like how i can still shape it in leatherhard state without cracking. but cant throw tall. i love how glaze looks on porcelain slip on top of Redstone. Plus secretly i feel an attachment to the past who used redclay with slip. However I cant throw tall with it. i think the manufacturers also say its not meant for big stuff or tall stuff. 

 

i love how sandstone buff looks. to throw i need a couple of days for my fingers to get used to. the flecks in the claybody tear my fingers initially till they get used to it. love how glaze looks on it. i enjoy throwing with it. with white (slip or glaze) it looks amazing.

 

bmix with grog - worked a lot with. handbuilding and throwing. i've not had problems with it cracking but see other students get cracks quite often. so dont use it much. 

 

other clays i have used but dont have much opinion about them. some clays that i have loved throwing i dont consider anymore because i've seen too many classmates works work or crack. 

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Highwater Phoenix. 

 

I was at a convention in Georgia and there was a guy doing a throwing demo, and he said Pheonix is the best clay he has ever thrown. He said if he ever had to change he wasn't sure if he would continue being a potter, or something to that sort. I thought that was a pretty bold statement. 

 

I have never thrown it since I don't have access to cone 10 firing, but I love all of highwater's clay. I actually prefer it over Standard.

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I used some f92 back in January when I did that soda fire with Terri. It was pretty nice. It used to be made by Fairey out of Vancouver, but now you can get it from Plainsman. (See bowl with juicy soda drip).

 

My usual is M390 from Plainsman. It generates a lot of slip, and can be soft, but I like it. (See the butter dish.

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Laguna Speckled Buff Cone 5. It turns a lovely sand color and has tiny flecks of manganese in it that cause tiny speckles of dark brown to appear on the surface of the raw clay and bleed through many glazes. So yummy. I leave it bare to show it off because I like it so much.

 

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Guest JBaymore

I don't use many commercial clay bodies unaltered and use my own formulations for some.

 

But for unaltered.................

 

#42 from Sheffield Ceramics Supply.

 

Grogzilla from Clay Planet.

 

Most of the time, I alter those as well.

 

best,

 

...............john

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