This is just a test....

Started working on crystalline glazes this past week.  I decided to try 15 different glazes, thinking that I get lucky with at least one of them.  I mixed up 200 gram batches of each glaze; they all have the same basic ingredients but vary slightly with the amounts.  I added water and painted my test pieces, and let the kiln rip.  I was pretty excited to see the results, and when I first looked in the peep hole and saw some crystals I got really excited.  I was so excited in fact that I pulled all the plugs and cracked the lid, even though the kiln was still at 900 degrees Fahrenheit.  Which isn’t the smartest thing to do with a glaze firing, it could possible cause the glazes to crack or might even crack a pot.  But this was just a test firing and I wasn’t that worried about them cracking.  Here are a few pictures of what came out of the kiln this time.

I sorted the results into three categories, no crystals, few crystals, and good crystals.  It worked out that there were five in each group.  The next step is to take the best five glazes and make big batches of them and start testing them with colorants.  So stay tuned for these crystalline glazes live in Technicolor, or something like that….  

Once more in to the Studio

I’m finally back in the studio after almost two years (seems like a lot longer).  I’m trying to get into a schedule that works with Ewan, which means I can only fit in about an hour to an hour and a half during the week, and a little more on the weekends.  I tend to go out to the studio when he goes in for his bath, after that its bed time for him so I can stay out as long as I want, but I have to get up at 3:30am to get ready for work so I’m usually in bed by 8:30pm.  It’s not much time but it’s enough to get back in the rhythm of the studio.  Well I need to get back to wedging some clay and getting ready to throw.  Thanks for visiting.

Books and Brushes

The bookshelf is finished.  Here are a few photos from the last couple of steps.

 Here was the last shelf being pegged and glued together.  You can see the pegs that I used to secure it down the side.

 Here is a better picture of the pegs.  I’m getting ready to cut them off and sand the whole thing down one last time (I sanded everything before I put it together).

 And here a picture of the same corner after I sanded the pegs down.

Now the other project I was working on was making my own sketch book.  Here are a few photos from that.

Here is the fabric and the cardboard that I used for the spine, front, and back.  The fabric is actually left over from when Keturah made me some hakama pants.

 This is where I folded the sides of the fabric over the edge of the cardboard and was preparing to glue the pages onto the cover.  I don’t have a picture of the pages being glued on because it took both hands (and a chin) to keep it together.

Here it is all clamped down.  I used parchment paper in between the cover pages to keep them from being glued together, and two more sheets to keep the wood from being glued to the front and back of the book.  After about a day of letting it dry while being clamped together I took it apart to see how I did.  And it turned out pretty well for the first book I ever made; the only downside was that it didn’t open all the way.  You see I had glued the spine to the cover, which makes it very difficult to open without ripping the cover pages out of the cover, which I did.  So I started over with the other set of pages I made, went through the whole process again.  I didn’t glue the spine down, and it turned out much better as you can see, it opens and everything!

After “succeeding” with my second book, I went ahead and made the first one again and now I have two sketch books   that are half way decent.  I plan to try to fill one a month for the next couple of months with sketches, notes, and general ramblings about pottery.  At which point I will make a few more   sketch books and try to fill those ones with more ideas.  The idea being that by being productive and creative, I will become more productive e and creative, which just might lead to some kind of real art work being produced out of this new studio space.

Speaking of studio space I was trying to get it a little more organized this week.  I finished unpacking the last of the boxes out there and set up the drawing table/desk.  I’m going to try and sketch and doodle and ponder out there as much as I can just to start a trend of being in the studio and out of the house.  Here’s the drawing table; it’s more organized than this now that I’ve worked on it a little more since I took this photo but you get the idea.

Also, as I was going through all the boxes I found some brushes that I made while I was in graduate school.  I don’t think I’ve used very many of them and now I think I’m only going to get a few of them.  So as a treat for those of you who suffered this far into my ramblings I will gladly give them to you!  Just send me a message either here or on facebook and we will make arrangements to get you a brush or two.  I think I will have about 10 or 11 to give away so let me know quickly.  Also, I want to make some more brushes but would like to use black bamboo so if any knows where I can get some about the diameter of a thumb or bigger please let me know.  Thanks for sticking with me this far!  See all of you next week.