New Glazed Work

I spent the bulk of the first two weeks of summer working on a commission for Rotary. While I was waiting on kilns, or filling in bits of unused time during this commission, I finished some functional work, mostly left over from last summer's workshop at Archie Bray.

slip trailed celadon mug thrown last summer, glazed last week

Last summer I threw work before the workshop, and glazed it in Montana. Then I threw work at the workshop and brought it home but mostly didn't get around to glazing it. I tried to spend my remaining bits of summer making sculpture, but mostly spent that time moving into the new building 

slip trailing bowls

Glazing is not my favorite fun-time activity. In fact I usually dread it. But, it is an activity that can be done in fairly small snatches of time when one doesn't have time to wedge, thrown and clean up before summer camp ends (and mom-time begins and one needs to pick up the kid).

slip trailing and underglaze

My major psychological advantage getting work glazed this summer versus last, is that this time around I had a stock of glazes that I actually kind of like. An added bonus is that I had a limited stock of glazes, so I wouldn't need to glaze more than four bottles worth.

slip trailing and celadon dots

I was fairly methodical in my glazing and stuck to the same palette and a similar plan as the work I did for the Rotary commission. The major adjustment is that instead of highlighting slashed marks with underglaze, I decorated some part of these pieces with slip trailed "hanging balloons." (I'm thinking of them as hanging balloons, from another perspective they're lollipops or circles at the end of lines.)

bowls and commission work after firing

I have fired about half of the glazed pieces, in the kilns with the Rotary commission work. Some of the stuff in the last firing didn't get quite hot enough, so I will need to re-fire it. Most of the work fired hot enough for the clear to flux (melt), but some of the colors look matte. Another 50-100 degrees or hour of firing should have fluxed all the glazes, but since they're cool now, I'll have to re-fire them completely.

under-fired pink celadon

I also have some pieces that haven't gotten to the kiln yet at all. Still, I have enough work done and fired correctly that I feel a sense of accomplishment and not the usual grumbly dread that accompanies glazing time for me.

un-fired glaze (on a form and glaze pattern started last year)

The glazes I used for these pieces are cone 6 celadons from Amaco. I've been pretty happy with them so far. I had started quite a few of the Archie Bray pieces with underglazes last summer, so the colors in this batch are more varied than they would otherwise be, but this time around, I only added black underglaze in a slip trailer and the four celadon glazes. 

two slip trailed pieces, possibly under-fired

On the new work, I have been trying to shape a thick rim into the pieces for a logical end for the colored glaze and a start for the hanging balloon decorations, but last summer I wasn't thinking this far ahead. The result is that some of the pieces I threw last year have a less logical starting point for glaze decoration. 

newly glazed bowls started last year

One really happy accidental result of this lack of planning when throwing is the bowl that has an irregular blue rim. The rim was meant to be round, but I slip trailed around the rim and ended up higher than intended. I decided to just treat the hanging string of one balloon as the edge for the rim color. I was annoyed when I glazed it, but coming out of the kiln it is one of my favorites.

my new favorite blue shell bowl

Last week, besides glazing old work, I threw some lidded pieces, in part because of a tentative commission through Oak Hollow Gallery. These pieces have slip trailing, but I haven't completed the glaze application yet. Actually, I ran out of glaze and only got the replacement order this week. 

slip trailed pieces awaiting new glaze

Slip Trailer Lines on Functional Work

I fired some low temperature functional work. I've been glazing for week and have been using mostly underglazes at this temperature. I've used a few glazes, but mostly I prefer the color contrast and stability of the underglazes.

I'm pretty happy with this bowl, the third attempt at this basic design.

I've also been using a slip trailer quite a bit, mostly for black underglaze. I leave the black underglaze in the trailer so that I don't have to wash it out every day. The trailer has a very fine tip and, with a needle in the tip, the underglaze doesn't dry out.

This mug was fired with a boring cone 04 glaze, then retired with the slip trailing and colored underglazes.

I had several new unglazed mugs and a few mugs with glaze that I didn't particularly like. The low fire glazes I have tend to look best in large plain areas with a drawing over the top, as in the one above and the one below to the right.

These mugs have a similar design, but with glaze on the bottom of the one on the right.

I've also used circular sponge stamps to place dots of underglaze and then decorated the dots of color with the slip trailed black. The texture of these decorations is sometimes a little rough, but I've added some clear and am re-firing the mugs that don't feel smooth.

This was a failed bubble plate, re-fired with underglaze trailing.

I've continued playing with the falling balls of color, like balloons or ornaments on a string. These work best when I am sure to have an even coat of color inside the circles. The underglazes sometimes look or feel like they have been applied evenly, then after firing irregularities show up.

Both of my bright yellow underglazes (Amaco and Duncan) are usually splotchy and hard to use well.

I prefer the look of the cone 6 celadon glazes to the cone 04 glazes in my studio. I intend to use the slip trailer and underglazes in combination with these higher temperature glazes in a future firing.

The uderglaze decoration was added on top of the fired Celadon glaze.

This summer I expect to fire two more cone 04 kiln loads and at least one cone 6 firing. I'm having some trouble focusing on the glazing and firing, partly because I find glazing fairly boring, and partly because I have responsibilities on campus that need to be addressed before the start of the academic year.

The last tiny pots from Christmas, finally finished.

A Bit of Work

I again didn't have much time in the studio this week. My daughter was sick for two full days. On the other hand, I did get a lot of reading done in the short bursts of time when she fell asleep on my lap. She's feeling better today, so I have a kiln firing right now with some underglazes work.  

Weekly total: 1 finished (building) piece

Today I finished one piece from the last batch of thrown pieces from early last week or so. This piece took longer than some because I covered almost the entire surface with overlapping sprigs. To contrast with the sprigged surface I created lily-like openings on the end. I added a raised rim around each of the oval shaped openings to add interest, but this process took more time and effort than I expected. 

lily-like end of finished piece

I used tiny coils to increase the height of the larger oval rims and used a slip trailer to add thickness to the smaller rims. All rims then needed to be smoothed with rubber tips on the inside and outside. Later I compressed all the rims with a wet chamois.

Two rubber tip tools, laying on a wet chamois, two hole punches (for the oval shaped holes) and my slip trailer.

After all that fuss, I foolishly decided to add texture to the entire remaining surface with a needle tool. Someday I will learn to make my processes easier and faster, right? I spent hours poking the wet clay with a needle tool.

I started drawing pictures in the surface with the needle tool just to break up the monotony.

Today I also worked on another wall piece from early last week. For this one I used fewer sprigs for the surface and used a slip trailer to add texture dots to the remaining surface. The slip trailer is quick, but also annoying because sometimes the slip gushes out quickly and I have to clean it off the surface before adding new drops of slip.

sprigs and slip trailed dots drying on the surface

I might take an opportunity to finish the work this weekend, though I was considering trying another lily-like end to this piece, so I may not have enough time to completely finish. Kids don't start school until Wednesday, so I won't have a full studio day again until then. In fact, with Labor day coming up, I won't have another full studio week until the second week of September. And the week after that I go back to work. I should probably be wrapping up my building if I expect to finish anything this summer. (slight panic, normal for late August)

I'm tired, so I'm not going to retake this slip trailing picture.