Pots,cups

Finished pots and cups,

the brown glaze FE worked really well,smooth and shiny (Earthenware Red clay)

the other two I used a mixture glaze Chun+coper it was a bit thin and it is different consistency to FE so it did not cover very well.(White Stone ware)

Photo by Robyn

Ceramic 3

After I got my other two pieces finished, I made 3 more on the last day before easter break.

The first I made  got the inspiration from  fields after ploughing, so it is still about farming and growth.

I made two testing pieces, and applied the same glaze as my corals.

But I did not like the colour thought it was too bright and glossy, so I would use GM next time, which is a matt glaze. And also they came out too sharp, I do not think will make more of them.

In order to make it softer looking, I tried a different technic to make the ploughed land, which I used a wire and made it into a zig zag shape and then pull it throught the clay.

 

 

the out come was much better than the previous one, I am pleased with the shape and also the glaze

so I decided to make more of them. But the new ones I added some Copper Carb and Rutil under GM.

 

 

Throwing

Since ceramics always time-consuming, while I wait for them to be put in the kiln, or out of the kiln I decided to learn throwing to keep my self productive. This doesn't really relate to my theme but I think it is good to learn something new rather than sit and wait. 

After my first throwing, I felt exhausting and my hands were hurting because of the spinning and clay bits rubbing on my skin. I found the hardest part was to keep the clay centre, I had to hold really tight to find the centre  even it was really hurting. But the outcome was not too bad for the first time, so I will need more practice.

I felt much better with my second trowing, therefore I tried to make some small pots or cups.

and found them actually much easier than making a bowl. 

The rough bits in the white clay still hurt my hands,

so I tried the finest clay that  I can find, which is the Red clay(earthen ware)

It is much softer and smoother than Stone ware, but I did not really like the colour it is a bit too dark and it might effect the colour of  the glazes.

So in the end, I only made one pot with Red clay, and made more using the White clay. Hope I will see them all been fired after easter break.

Ceramic2

I got the inspiration from corals and starfish  for these two pieces,

Thought they are sort of sea flowers, how incredible is that their colours are naturally formed.

I decided to go with the greenish colours again, but did not find the exact colour that I want, so I used two glazes to blend together(F/11 and F/16), interestingly the colour is slightly different depends on I  put the green first or the yellow first. Therefore, I tried both way, and they looked totally different in colours before firing. Also I tried something new

that I wiped out the glaze in the centre and put some brown glass in  so when it's fired it melts to form a glassy coat.

They all turned into a beautiful green colour when they are finished. And the glass worked really well , and they got a blue edge around the glass that happened unexpectedly but it made them even more pretty and interesting.

Trees

By doing ceramics, I gradually get more ideas, I thought beside making something from clay, I can also try some casting.  Because when I was thinking about organic things, other than fields I also thought about woods, and trees are all got naturally formed shapes. And casing is a easier way to get a shape more accurately rather than making it. Therefore I picked some nice shaped branches from a tree, and coated them with clay slip, thought once  the branch been fired the actual branch will burn into ashes in the kiln then I can get a hollow ceramic sculpture of a branch. 

But unfortunately,  when the slip coat dried it cracked, this happened is due to the wet slip dried and shrinked on a hard surface. Although it did not fall apart at that stage, but the technician told me that they won't be able to stay once it's been fired. After one week of waiting, it proofed what technician told me, it fail to small pieces