Club project - shop box

Club project - shop box

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Bisque firing and slip casting

The pottery class was great as usual, lots of talk about this and that and everybody working on their own pieces. This is the result of the bisque firing of the little pots I made on the potters wheel a couple of weeks ago. 

The rather big one at the front is a failure that has been fired anyway to be a tester for glazes. It is not only far too big, but it has also sagged around the base so it looks a bit like a beer belly over a very tight belt.  In short it looks weird.  The rest I'm quite proud of, as most of them are actually round and you have no idea how difficult it is to keep them that way after they are off the wheel!   I will be glazing some of them and decorating a few for the Japanese room.

Then came slip casting with the moulds for the tulip vase. These are the resulting pots on top of the moulds, they still need a lot of work before I can stack them.  The biggest pot on the left is by far the best shape.


The photo below shows the way a mould is supposed to drain into the pot of slip clay. That just didn't happen and it was quite a job to get the slip drained. 
Doesn't look like much but there really is a square base pot in this mould!
I will be casting another lot of pots using more diluted slip and enlarging the hole in the mould to make it drain better. The tops of the pots need bigger holes anyway to stack them properly.  That will then give me a few versions to experiment with. Then again, I might totally change my mind and keep them all as separate pots, who knows?

Happy mini-time,  Idske xx





12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks! It's getting there, just a long time to wait until next Tuesday !

      Delete
  2. Your pots look great. Going to learn later today how to cast mini porcelain dolls, in the past when I made dolls I always just bought the greenware. Have fun with glazing your pots.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I found making the moulds a lot more difficult than the casting of the pots. Although the normal timings for pouring etc mean absolutely nothing when applied to miniatures. It's all experimenting and I just love that!

      Delete
  3. Heerlijk hè Idske, om dingen te onderzoeken en uit te vinden hoe het gaat? Ik vind dat persoonlijk vaak het leukste van alles én om een mooi resultaat te krijgen natuurlijk :D! Deze potjes zien er al mooi uit, ik heb het nooit zelf gedaan, maar wel vernomen dat het knappies moeilijk is om te doen. Succes ermee, hoor!
    Misschien wist je dit inmiddels al over die word-verification: op het dashboard bij je instellingen voor word-verification veranderen in "no" en dan als laatste op "opslaan" klikken (dat vergeten er een heleboel en dan is het natuurlijk nog niet weg!). Ik hoop dat het werkt, toen ik het gedaan had, kreeg ik wel wat spam, maar ook veel volgers weer terug. Veel mensen kunnen het niet goed lezen, dus laten dan ook een reactie maar achterwege. Jammer van het contact en de tips die ze kunnen geven.
    Liefs, Ilona

    ReplyDelete
  4. Geeft niks hoor, het bevestigt wat ik al dacht dat er gebeurd was. Het zit naar mijn idee niet allemaal even logisch in elkaar, maar ik weet nu hoe het wel moet!

    Over het pottenbakken, het vergt veel concentratie, maar ook best wel kracht in je handen. Het moeilijkste is het centreren van de klei op het wiel, maar als je dan een paar potjes neerzet is al dat moeizame centreren al weer vergeten!



    ReplyDelete
  5. I love your little pots! I really want to learn how to do this. Maybe in the spring I will take that class? Can't wait to see how you glaze them. I'm thinking that will be really fun. Please share photos of the process if you can.
    Blessings,
    Kathi

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kathi, It is definitely a lot of fun! I started with 'normal' size stuff and immediately realised it isn't that easy. Also I watched the videos by Jon Almeda http://www.almedapottery.com/process.html over and over again. He is an IGMA artist and also teaches at the Castine School. The teachers at 'normal' size classes don't necessarily have the sort of tools you need. As you can see, compared to Jon's pots, I still have a long way to go! :)

      Delete
  6. Hi Idske! How are you? How may I have a vase like your? Do you sell them?
    Thank you in advance!
    Good day!
    D.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Diego, Thank you! Sorry but I don't sell them. I'm working on another 2 moulds, but it takes a long time to get to a finished pot or vase. I do a pottery class one evening per week.

      I couldn't do both my job and make more pots and vases, I also don't have my own kiln and that makes making them in larger numbers very difficult, sorry.

      Delete

I've had to turn on comment approval again, because of the ridiculous amount of anonymous spam. Anonymous comments with a commercial connection will be removed.