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Rae Reich

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Everything posted by Rae Reich

  1. Good idea, @baetheus! It takes quite a bit of practice to write and draw on curved surfaces - stencils, etc, are much easier to use on flat surfaces as well!
  2. One of my first clay purchases at a street fair after I become a clay student was a wall piece with a gorgeous area of matte apricot/orange. I begged the Santa Barbara potters to tell me the secret - rutile? - but they just smiled. Many years later, while washing it, I scratched that area and discovered it was acrylic paint! Should they have just told me the truth, thus preparing me for Ken Price’s demos for our class? By then, we’d seen his luscious auto paint finishes (which really need an auto painting booth) so he showed us how to be free with “Granny” low-fires for the thrill of bright color in the Age of 70s Stoneware.
  3. Acrylic paint keeps its color well over time. India ink is “traditional”. Shoe polish is intended for very smooth surfaces and might not polish up to be “sealed” on ceramic, even porcelain.
  4. I have re-stuck lifted glaze SOMETIMES by misting very gently with water to get the glaze to lie down again, but there have been some places where touch-up was necessary. Otherwise, wash off and start over.
  5. I know your pain! Your Item 4 is where the problem is, I agree. Any bending will be remembered!! Find or make out of clay a cookie-release shape that you can use to hold the coaster flat as you lift the cutter. I have dowels to push out clay stamped with smaller tubing, but it took a while to find something that fit perfectly within my large biscuit cutter. Also, you can place one drywall board over your board full of coasters to keep them all flat as you flip them over (not too big of a board full of coasters, hold boards firmly together as you turn). Ditto all the advice about drafts!
  6. Might be tortuous in your heat, but your oven can be used to pre-heat your pots, in lieu of (recommended) candling. Mine has a pilot light so it stays warm enough on its own, an electric stove that can be set for 150-165dg works too. Eight hours is about enough.
  7. Glaze pencils on white clay would be good for writing more than 10-15 words. Bisque a few small pieces to test how the glaze pencils work and how much clear to apply. Make a few large pieces, a bowl, a pitcher, a vase, with some surface smoothed with a rib to write on. Bisque fire the pieces. Choose the one you like best. Write lyrics on the cleared space with the glaze pencils and brush over that area with clear glaze. When dry, wax over the lyrics and proceed to glaze the rest of the piece with colors you have been successful with. If there aren’t too many words, you can carve them into the leather-hard clay with a stylus, needle tool or small loop tool and glaze as @Pres suggests. You will still need to make test pieces to try out various glazes or stains that will work for you. If you are working on other things in the studio for practice or assignments, you can test some of your ideas on them. Happy Anniversary (even if you have to present an unfinished piece or photos)
  8. I can foresee glazing difficulties if you succeed in reattaching the foot before glazing, primarily consistent glaze application. I am assuming you will want a very clean looking glaze finish rather than piled-on layers. If you pre-drill the bisque pieces to accept metal anchors and then glaze and fire them separately, epoxy and anchors would be the most-likely-to-last repair (clean attachment area and holes thoroughly before firing). If you want to try the glaze-as-glue technique, I would still glaze each piece separately, then set them into the kiln touching where you want. Dampen the glazed places that you want to join and smush them together when on the kiln shelf. This join will be more fragile and could still break (it’s just a thin coat of glass with less integrity than clay) with careless handling.
  9. I have had buckets of Mistake glazes, also Mystery glazes - bags of unknown origin that fired with desirable effects. Being the kind of potter who wants to make unique and original pieces, I cherish the special qualities and try to use those one-offs creatively while they last. The one-of-a-kind nature of That glaze on That pot can be a selling point. Some of us older potters have experienced the disappearance of specific glaze materials and we don’t always try to replicate the lost effects, we just find what new stuff we can do with what’s available. There are so many possibilities ….
  10. There might be a shrinkage difference between the paper clay appendage and the already-bisqued hare. I would just make the appendage a bit bigger than the fired hare and fire separately. After firing, the paper clay bisque can be sanded down to fit and attached. Prepare both surfaces for the attachment as you’re making the new appendage.
  11. What great glazes! And nice to read in the comments references to the Natzlers and Arneson, the extremes of the clay heroes of my student years. We all made weed pots, too. Layne’s persistence is obvious. His focus on the variety of surfaces he could achieve seems to me to be way beyond Gertrude, even. Perhaps because he also focused on what sells - Reds!! Oranges!! I, too, want to hold them!
  12. Thanx, guys But, to paraphrase an old Hawaiian saying, “Never turn your back on your kiln.” It was my responsibility.
  13. My biggest kiln disaster was when I left a person who was angry with me to monitor a ^10 firing in our big catenary arch kiln. When it got to temp, he walked away, leaving it to blast until I arrived 6 hours later. Looked in the peephole and saw … nothing! Took a day to cool enough to start unbricking the door. Melted hard brick kiln posts, melted wadding, shelves at all angles lodged into pots, pots were slumped together, some pots actually drooled like oatmeal onto other pots and shelves, some just unfolded. The hard brick kiln walls were bubbling brown/black. Amazingly, some of my carved pots survived intact, with only a drool from another pot. At least, it was only my pots and not anyone else’s! I still have some as “reminders”.
  14. Seems like wetting and scraping the roads when “salting season” is over would alleviate the problem for almost everyone without redistributing dust through the air. And maybe come up with a less hazardous treatment in future. Good luck, Alaska <3
  15. A soft and worn scrubby is a gentle abrasive that is more flexible than a new one.
  16. If you are brushing on glaze, a high bisque for earthenware makes sense. It wouldn’t suck up the moisture in the glaze as fast. Would be worse for dipping, I think.
  17. If these bumps didn’t appear until the decal firing, I think maybe that could be because of incomplete/inefficient earlier firings. I would definitely show your results to the clay maker, especially since it’s a new formula.
  18. Jessica, when you have some work to dry thoroughly, all the above information will help, although I’d be reluctant to drill holes in something so small. If you have an oven with a pilot light that stays warm inside, or an electric oven that can be set to a very low temperature, you can put the charming bird to “candle” there for overnight or longer (remember to remove it when you cook!). Do this in addition to candling the whole kiln thoroughly before firing. Best wishes!
  19. Shouldn’t. Dried oil can still feel tacky, but doesn’t create a film like paint or become crumbly like dried glaze. Test, test, test.
  20. My first rookie mistake in kiln loading! My plates were larger and drooped irreparably, some onto the rims of other peoples’ pots. The lab tech watched me do it and left me to learn the hard way. I can laugh now
  21. Adhesive backed cricut sheets should work. Press edges down securely with a wooden tool. Don’t touch the surface with anything after cleaning with alcohol, especially fingers. Be patient and let it dry well between coats. Definitely do a test design or two before committing. That tiny bottle will go far, even with multiple coats.
  22. Use a brush when washing dusty crevices. Leftover dust will interfere with the glaze adhesion.
  23. If you want a stencil for repeat production on the same forms, you might consider making a silicone ’mask’ form-fitted to the curves of the mugs. I wouldn’t have to be the full circumference, but the silicone makes it easy to place, remove and reuse. Also replicate. Many videos on YouTube on silicone mold making.
  24. Maybe refers to using small cones in the kiln sitter shut-off and not the full size ones?
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