Interim week

No class last week because of Thanksgiving. Instead, I got brave enough to try some more glazing, but only after consulting the combination examples on the Mayco site.

What I have is the Mayco Stoneware 2023 Glaze Kit, with samples of a dozen glazes. I wanted to try Amaryllis (SW-192) on the fish I made a while ago (and which I apparently never blogged about), but I didn't want it to be *all* Amaryllis. So I applied two coats of Sand Dollar (SW-196) on the head and fins, then two coats of the Amaryllis all over. Theoretically, the head and fins should turn out different from the body. We'll see! (The dark spots are crystals that should produce an interesting result.)

This piece is one of my watering devices. I plan to set it an inch or so into the soil of a potted plant. When I water the planter by pouring water into the fish mouth, the water should flow out the buried holes at the base. Ideally.

After watching a video provided by Amaco on layering PC-31 Oatmeal over PC-33 Iron Lustre, I glazed a couple of heavy mugs that I also never blogged about. The one on the left has three coats of Oatmeal over three coats of Iron Lustre, with the Oatmeal restricted to the top third of both the inside and outside of the mug. The one on the right is the opposite: three coats of Iron Lustre over three coats of Oatmeal, with the Iron Lustre on just the top third of the inside and outside, plus the heart.

I frequently fall down a rabbit hole of glaze combination posts on FB, where everyone seems to apply three coats of each glaze. Yet I'm a little worried about how much these glazes will run, so my next task is to make "cookies" or "biscuits" - disks of bisqueware to go under the pieces when they are glaze fired. The cookies will protect the kiln shelf from running glazes... I hope.

Class five

We were supposed to make butter dishes at the fifth hand-building pottery class, but I kind of steered us toward finishing techniques. My popcorn bowl from last week wasn't as bad as I thought it was, but I wanted to make it better. One method is using a rather large rasp to trim away excess clay and make the walls more consistent. Once again, no pix.

When I was satisfied with my popcorn bowl, I decided to pinch a little pumpkin. The instructor showed me how to make the ridges using a shaping tool, the same one I used to make the toes on my turtle pieces. It's one thing to *have* pottery tools, but it is another thing to know how to use them.

Then I laid awake that night, thinking of different ways to make pumpkins, both large and small, most of the methods horribly inefficient.

At home, I glazed another platter I had made a while ago. This one is similar to the previous one, but this time I decided to use both Celadon glazes over the underglaze. Fingers crossed it turns out okay.

Dark green underglaze, applied to leaf

Dark green underglaze, wiped

I've taken several pottery classes, but I don't recall being encouraged to "rib" in any of them. Ribbing a slab after rolling it out not only smooths the surface, but aligns the clay cells. I obviously did not rib this platter, nor the previous one.

Using a "magic eraser" gave cleaner results removing excess underglaze, but the small imperfections on the platter's surface held onto the color.

Jade celadon, applied to leaf

Wasabi celadon, applied all over

Both of the leaf platters are at FW Clay, waiting to be fired. The store charges by the weight; the two platters weighed 3 pounds altogether. Since I used my own glazes, the total was $5.25. (Bisque firing is free if one purchases the clay from the store.) I could see where someone doing mass production for an art festival might find this method expensive, but I don't really have anything to compare it to besides the maker space I was at, and they recently changed their pricing policy for kiln use, probably because they were getting so many big producers in there.

We do not have class this week, due to Thanksgiving. Hopefully, all my pieces from class will be bisque fired by next week, and the platters glaze fired as well.

Class four

The fourth hand-building class was to be on coil-building. I was pretty excited because I have struggled with this. And the instructor promised to teach us an "easy" method. Again, I neglected to take photos.

Her method was more of a hybrid between coil-building, pinching, and wheel-throwing. My first impression was, I don't like this. It took me two tries to come up with a quart-size popcorn bowl that would stand up. I've seen videos where the coils are more like long slabs, where the coils are thick as hawser rope, where the coils are very thin, so I'm aware that there is more than one way to make a coil-built bowl. But I was disappointed that what we learned was not more traditional.

Or maybe I was a bit disgruntled because the instructor pooh-poohed the container of slip I brought for constructing the wall vases. I was hoping for a bit of help with them, especially the cutting part, but was mostly left on my own. Consequently, they are not quite even. The instructor seemed alarmed that I was not going to carve them. Frankly, I cannot draw, let alone carve, so I brought them home and "carved" them using different pasta shapes.

After watching several YT videos on glazing with Amaco Celadon, I decided to work on a platter I made a while ago. Initially, I was going to use dark green underglaze (Amaco Decorating Colors) on the leaves, then top them with Celadon 'Jade', then cover the whole thing with Celadon 'Wasabi'. But after wiping off the underglaze, I decided to skip the Jade and just use the Wasabi. We'll see how it turns out.

Underglaze applied

Underglaze wiped off (mostly)

Glazed (but still a bit damp)

I admit that I get a bit disgruntled with myself because I am not a very good potter. But I remind myself that I have not been doing it long, and I like to experiment, so results are usually unexpected. I'm still itchy to get a small kiln of my own, so I can make my ugly pottery away from the public eye, as I do enjoy the process.

Class three

I neglected to take any photos of what I worked on during the third class of the hand-building workshop. We were scheduled to make platters of some sort, but the instructor also said we could deviate from the lesson plan. So I started making a wall vase. Well, actually two wall vases, as the trick is to make a container, then cut it in half vertically and attach a back to each half. I created a round container and the slabs for the backs.

Our first class was about creating stamps and rollers. The two latecomers are *still* working on theirs. I tried working on them at home, but it hasn't gone well. I'm beginning to think I prefer to *buy* stamps and rollers rather than make them.

In the past couple of months, I have tried to set aside Wednesdays as "block" days, when I don't schedule anything so that I am free to work on artsy craftsy stuff. I think today is the first blocked Wednesday without an interruption. So I started a slab container for holding chop sticks. Instead of using a stamp or roller for the design, I snipped some tips off an arborvitae in my yard.

Each side is about 3"x6". I left the sprigs on the clay while I assembled the container, to prevent smudging of the design. That's something one can't do with rollers and stamps.

One problem I have in class is rushing. Even though each session is three hours long, I find myself trying to cram as much experience into that time slot as I can. At home, I have to remind myself to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. Things go much better when one doesn't hurry.

I'm also trying to get as much out of each class as I can. My goal was to improve my techniques so that anything I make in the future will turn out better than in the past. The tips and tricks are what make the difference.