Glazing: Lemon Squeezers and Plates

lemon squeezers

I did some glazing and firing this week, mostly because I wanted to get my lemon squeezers done so we could use them. They work great and it doesn't seem to make a big difference what the fluting on the bulb is shaped like..

lemon squeezers in blue and yellow

I glazed them with mostly cone 5-6 Celadons from Amaco. I like these glazes for their bright colors and because the colors look different when they are thicker, such as when they are pooled in the low areas of a texture or of the fluting in the lemon squeezer.

this little lime squeezer stands up on its end, but I didn't realize it until after I took the pictures.

I made these squeezers with some porcelain clay I had laying around, and on just one I ended up wiping the colored celadon away from the raised part of the squeezer top and finishing that raised surface with clear celadon (which looks white on porcelain clay). I wish I had done this with all of them. I used a similar layering technique with some of the bottoms of the lemon squeezers.

both of these pieces have layered glaze to highlight the textures

I am also happy that all six, even the ones with a lean to them, stand up on their ends on the counter. They're small enough to fit in a drawer, but they look nice enough to stand on the counter. I've run one through the dishwasher, but they're also super easy to just rinse off after lemon squeezing. 

the two ends are done differently, but highlighted in layered glaze

Besides the lemon squeezers, I glazed some plates and mugs. The plates are all pretty small, but I'm fairly happy with the results. I layered the ochre glaze on one plate to create varied textures, and I think it instead looks a little messy, but the others are good. The blues, in particularly, look good in person.

small plates with mostly celadon glazes

Along with the lemon squeezers, I finally fired some mugs I had glazed last year some time. They sat, ready to fire, through the entire studio remodel, which started in about September of last year. 

mugs from last year with celadon glazes

My favorite of the mugs I fired are these two-colored mugs. They're more time consuming by far than the plates, but I like the pattern.

my favorite of the mugs, the red is a particularly lush color

Lemon Squeezy

I finally got into the studio this week. I guess I haven't thrown since early March (before classes moved online for finals) and I haven't really worked with wet clay since spring break. I was hoping to be done with school stuff this week. I'm not quite there yet, but I did sneak in some time to throw at least.

Lemon Squeezers, Sean saw these on my shelf and said he thought they looked like tools.

My getting-back project was to make some lemon or lime squeezers for our kitchen. Earlier this year my husband bought a metal lemon squeezer, but the metal quickly started pitting and looking ugly. Around this time I saw some hand held citrus squeezers by Lorna Meaden on her Instagram and realized that ceramic would be more durable and easy to clean for regular use--and possibly easier to fit in the drawer.

Sculpture from a couple years ago

As I was throwing the pieces, I realized that the basic form I was imagining is pretty similar to the essentially form of many of my sculptures. I kept the squeezer part thick so that I could carve channels into the surface for maximum lemon squeezing efficiency, and I made a variety of parts so I could see what worked best. 

More Lemon Squeezers with simplified tops.

I carved the channels differently in different pieces and I'm not sure which will work best. I was thinking about also trying a version where I add coils onto the surface. I also played around with the handle shape and size and I think the result is that some of these look nicer than others. I'd say these were prototypes, but I'm not sure there's going to be much need for more of these. Once I fire them we'll try them out and see which work best.

A lime squeezer (because it is smaller)

I also threw some plates and dabbled a bit with a couple of mug and sculpture ideas today. My clay had gotten fairly dry since last summer, so it took a bit of work to get back in shape and it really wasn't as nice to throw with, but the studio time was refreshing anyway. 

my clean floor after mopping

After I threw and trimmed today, I was able to easily mop up the floor so my studio still looks nice and clean. It was also nice to easily put my bats directly onto the shelf next to my wheel. Unfortunately, I discovered one drawback of the new studio floor: my stool has wheels which roll more now than they did on the carpet and rugs of the old studio. I might have to replace them or add some kind of block to keep them from rolling while I throw.