Tuesday night work 6/7/11

Started off the night throwing 6 bowls for Emma. This past weekend, I sat and trimmed 16 pieces... 6 bowls and 10 plates. It took forever partly because they were too dry and partly because there were so many. It was very hard to maintain my concentration while doing this. Thank goodness for other people in the studio to talk to! And thank goodness I can talk and trim at the same time.

I think that I will limit how many small pieces I throw in the future. 6 at a time or so, because the trimming is such a bore and by the time I get to the last one, I almost stop caring about how they look. Not good for someone who is as particular as I am!

After throwing the bowls, I trimmed a vase. I think July will be vase month. More little plates in between.

Ended the night carving. I know it doesn't look like I've gotten very far on this one. I haven't. It's going to take a lot longer than I expected or planned on. I did discuss using China paints on this piece once it's glazed and fired. That way, I might be able to get some skin tones on the mermaid.

Love doing experiments like this.

Carved bottle

Small carved bottle. This one is less than 6 inches tall and fully carved. I used my new photo soft light box to take the photo. I need to work on making a gradated back drop for it next.

One big vase and skull pendants

Hooray! I finally got a tall vase to come out without cracking. It stands around 23.625 inches tall. Yes, I try to be exact. I wasn't too happy about the shape before I glazed it, but I'm ok with it now.

From big to little. I'm also working on carving up more pendants. Above you see hand carved and underglaze painted girly skulls. One is a vampire (the one on the bottom right). They're cute. I'm going to try to carve a few more and I have a few more designs in mind.

This weekend, we're doing another noborigama wood firing. Hope to get a few carved pendants in that firing and a few more big vases.

Pictures to follow!

Big ole vase and some carved bowls

Here's a vase. It's a stacker made from 4 cylinders. I wasn't too happy with how it was looking, so, first I 'dinged' it a bit with a wooden stick tool. Still wasn't happy with it, so I cut out some holes in the neck.

I didn't cut the same number of holes into the neck on each side. There are either 1 or 2 holes on each side.

By the time this is fired it should stand about 20 inches tall. 12% is the usual shrink rate, but that's when you get the clay to cone 10 (about 2345 degrees). However, I'm planning to wood fire this, so the temperature is higher and this might shrink a good bit more.

And I needed to carve up some bowls that have been sitting around for a long time. Wasn't up to doing a lot of carving, but I figure some 'big' rather than intricate delicate work was called for last night.

Carved bottle and bowl

Carving again. When I first showed these off, I was asked if I was going to keep the throw lines.

Originally, I said yes. After getting these bisque fired, I changed my mind and sanded off the throw lines.

They are nice and smooth now.

In looking at my stock, I realized that I don't have enough big bowls. Actually, I have no big bowls. So, I threw some. These are quarter baggers i.e. 1/4 of a bag of clay each. They're roughly 6 lbs each.