What a difference .. a CLAY makes ...

[Pyewackette]

So the Studio Manager where I've been working decided to go to bagged clay for most things, which means the studio clay I've been struggling with is now reserved to classes and sales to local schools.  I picked up a sample (big enough to make a fair sized bowl) of each of the 3 clays he currently has available to us and piggybacked onto his next order for 5 more.  The 3 we currently have are from Armadillo, Raku, cone 5 Porcelain, and Balcones Dark.  Until my new clay gets here I'll just be working with the porcelain.

I THREW PORCELAIN!  I threw it thick, granted, but it didn't fall down and die.  That rim is a scosh short of 1/4" thick.  Yes, I'm squashing it and going to learn to go much much thinner.

 

The Raku is just not very good for throwing as might be expected but I threw with it also.  I just realized I failed to take a picture of that, but it wasn't pretty anyway.  I turned it into a planter.  Who knows if it will survive kiln firing.  Unlike the porcelain, it is SUPER thin.  If I can get near that with porcelain it'll be a miracle LOL!  But here's a pic of a vase-like-object with the studio clay, the cracking is not thanks to sodium silicate, that's just what the clay does.  I was going for a spiral effect and that's what I got.

The Balcones Dark practically threw itself.  The walls are properly thin and even and that bowl at 9" across (and flared out that way) is twice as big as anything I could manage with the studio clay which would just slump and I couldn't pull it out anywhere near even anyway.

And here is an experiment with drippy glaze that failed largely because the kiln shut off due to a power failure and then started up again by itself so things got overfired.  That is a white glaze with blue celadon over the top.  I applied the blue celadon with a spoon to make drips down the side of the outside which I actually failed to take a picture of,  I waxed the inside so it wouldn't drip inside but didn't wax all the way down so it dripped past the wax and made dribbles in the bottom half anyway.  Then when the kiln re-fired itself, the wax was gone so we got melting celadon from the rim down into the inside of the bowl anyway.  But I like the effect, sans the overfiring, so I'll be trying that again.

So that's what I've been up to pottery-wise this past month.  I spent the whole summer either in my garden or with my grandson.  I have bushels of stuff to put up since it frosted 2 days ago.  Peas are still going and I didn't make it to the maters and peppers but I've got a ton of edible gourds and squash to put up.

[Pyewackette]

Aaand here is one result from my Throwing Big class.  Its not actually as uneven as it looks, I've discovered my cell phone camera tends to distort things if they're not just exactly head on and centered.  That thing is somewhere between 2.5' and 3' tall LOL!  I am disappointed in the rim.  I just couldn't find any way to get the nice rolled thick rim like I had on the vase-like object above.  This was accomplished by throwing about the bottom 1/3rd and then coiling up.

I'm hoping to put it in the next soda firing with some version of sprayed-on washes like iron and cobalt with some flux material to make them satiny but still show the texture.  Actual glaze would just hide the texture (and celadons are not an option because this is the old studio clay and it looks really crappy under a celadon).

I slapped on a lotta slip to do the texturing.

 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Pyewackette