porcelain week 3
I did some trimming last night, really happy with the overall shape now of my first porcelain bowl, and happy with my little saki jug. though the neck of it began to break while trimming it, and i had to apply some paper porcelain clay to it to shore it up. A vase i was trimming got really thin too and almost poked through, but i managed to stop short of that.
I also got 5 of my pieces back, the two flower pots, my carved bowl, and my candle holder. which turned out great =) . also got the test bowl back from the glaze pencils. so i’m looking forward to doing more with them.
porcelain
worked for a few on some porcelain, but haven’t managed to take good pictures of my stuff while i’m working on it. just going back and updating it now. I made six pieces the first night of porcelain. but only managed to remember to photograph three of them. sorry.
i like dogs… for dinner
I was a productive little motherfucker… after breaking the 4th saki cup and having to throw a few new ones in the hopes that i won’t break it this time. I also ended up trying to throw a food dish for one of my mom’s dogs. hopefully C5′ll appreciate it { Cee – Five . yes. its the dog’s name }.
- Spring & Winter
- Throwing off the Hump
- Doggie Dish
- Urn
- My Favorite Bowl
- Spiral Bowl
- Dream Cup
- bowls
I got my burnished stoneware vase back, as well as two of my saki cups. waiting till I have a few more pieces to glaze. I see now what they meant when they gave me funny looks for trying to burnish stoneware =/ . I still like it, it’ll be a fun piece.
Also got my three glazed pieces from a few weeks ago back. The Kanji in the little cup bled a little. Note to self: leave some more room for painted on kanji to breathe.
fall
managed to eke out the Fall saki cup. my clay is getting pretty dry, and i’m starting to worry I won’t have enough time to finish summer next week.
I’ve also found the application to go to Tokoname, JP for next year. Its a five week study abroad program. I only get three weeks of vacation. I probably won’t get in since I’m still just a neophyte in the pottery world. But it would be awesome to go back to japan and see Tokoname again.
winter-spring
This week brings pictures of the mug, as well as two out of the four saki cups that i rescued from the recycle bin last week. I’ve already trimmed them down ( and one fell off the wheel, i hope i was able to repair it enough and that it dries properly =/ ). I’ve carved japanese kanji for Spring and Winter into them. They’ll be a full set eventually , spring, winter, summer, fall.
- Mug
- mug
- spring saki cup
- winter saki cup
i’ve got small bowls
I stopped by the Y tonight and did some glazing. ( decided to be productive after my post-work jog ).
- mini cup before glazing
- mini cup after glazing
- before staining
- spiral bowl
- my favorite bowl
- bowls from the side
I’ll stop by yet again tomorrow to really work during the open workshop and trim some more stuff, and snap a picture of my mug. i wasn’t able to put the detail on that i wanted to, sadly. it was bone dry when i stopped in tonight. ah well. next time.
just a quick ceramics update
I will be taking another course of ceramics , there’s just so much that I want to learn. Of course, I forgot my phone at home yesterday, so I didn’t have it with me to take pictures of my mug ( which i trimmed too thinly, and started to collapse before our teacher helped me bandaid it a little. ) It looks good now. I’m happy with the handle, and i put some white slip on it to see what that will do for the final product. I did realize a detail that i want to change on it. we’ll see if its possible for me to do that Thursday when I go into open workshop.
I also salvaged some saki cups out of the recycled clay. one of the students that isn’t coming back was just going to junk them. So I scavenged them so i can trim them this week.
My two bowls and mini saki cup are bisque fired, and waxed on the bottom, just need some time to glaze them. I know one bowl will be getting a glossy white lip treatment and a violite dunk. i don’t know what to do with the other one though. and the saki cup… so much to do. promise i’ll take pictures later this week.
copper red
so i had my first attempt at getting the copper red glaze to work… and it failed.
just ended up kind of a muddy color. there’s a little blush of red on the side, but its hard to see. such a nice plate otherwise.
tuesday was my last night to throw during class, all i managed to do was trim my saki cup, a second bowl, and throw a weird looking vase that’ll probably collapse as it dries ::shrug:: I’ll need to put in some extra time after hours, and maybe see about signing up for another class. its fun, but I worked out how much it is per class, and I don’t know if i can keep taking the class.
Bowls
so i got two of my press plates back from ceramics class. one’s an oribe ( green ) glaze, that i’d hoped would be more metallic and lustery, but i’m happy with anyway. the other is a curved press plate (?) dunked in a violite glaze. ( blue ).
more to come! i just glazed another one last week ( still firing in the kiln ) and I just trimmed a bowl, and threw a mug ( gonna be a coffee mug i figure now ). One of my first attempts at the mug kept falling apart, and eventually i gave up, now its going to be a small saki glass. lol.









































