My New Ceramics Adventures: Glaze Drip!

Two recent glazing experiments turned out very pretty (I am a human with a soft spot for everything blue :) but this glaze is runny (meaning when it is going through high-temperature firing in a kiln it becomes more viscous than other glazes and might drip. And that is exactly what happened to my two vases! But since it was minimal, I consulted with my pottery team, donned safety glasses and a particle mask, and picked up a Dremel tool. Now I thought that dremel was a tool - like a hammer or pliers. But it is a Xerox! (meaning Dremel is a company name - one of the manufacturers of compact rotary tools!)

And in just a few minutes I got sharp edges sanded down and vases suitable for drawing, filling with flowers and sticks, and gifting :)

A Tiny Vase and a New Flower Pot with a Saucer

I tried some new things: a tiny vase on the top is made with b-mix - the plainest of clays and covered with clear glaze. I changed the shape to almost rectangular, and it has brown spots that are made with a different kind of clay inlaid in the body of the vase. I would like to try making more of these multi-clay pieces!

The bottom contraption is a flower pot that I turned upside-down for this sketch. And it is made with speckled buff and glazed with two beautiful glazes that mixed up nicely: nori green and light blue, diagonally applied with overlap. A new and interesting thing about it is actually a saucer that is on the very bottom. It was not the first attempt at making a plate, but so far, this is the best one I've made!

Another Vase I made!

This is a present for a friend who is not online as much and is not reading this blog, so I am posting it before it is actually gifted to the recipient. I've been trying to nail the shape of a vase where the top half is larger than the bottom part, but I am still far from my goal. However, this one was a step forward, and I enjoyed making a new texture on the surface and experimenting with the way glazes pulled in the holes. (Spoiler - yellow did not pull as much as I hoped! Possibly because I dropped the whole vase in a bucket with glaze, which caused the layer to be too thick, and I sponged some of the extra glaze off - and, probably, overdid it).

I Made a Set of Two Vases

I made a set of two vases. It was harder than I thought because at first I thought I made them, and then I had to make them again - they were not a set! And I wanted them to be close relatives. But very different. And these two are :) And they were a gift to two friends of mine - from two different generations, and having these friendships is a gift by itself!

Another Vase I Made!

This vase has lots of things that I would do differently today but I learned a lot! See some notes around it :) I names it honey skep. 

Another Vase I Made

This was my second time when I was able to make a closed form on the wheel (you make a cylinder and then you make sure that it has no opening at the top). I let it dry some and made a hole for the entrance to the vase. This clay is gritty, rough, and strong, yet when completed, this little piece looked very gentle. I put some grasses from around my home in it before giving it as a gift to a friend :)

I Mave a Vase

A few months ago, I went to a wheel-throwing class, and little by little, I got hooked :)  I've been trying to write this post forever because of how much there is to say about this activity by itself and how it fits into my practice. But since the big overview is taking forever, I decided to start by drawing some of my clay experiments and sharing them here :) 

The first vase appeared on my blog in the post with the bouquet of roses.

And here is a second vase:

For those affected with pottery bug: this vase was thrown on a wheel with speckled buff clay, I used green underglaze (UG38 - Key Lime) and then after first firing applied some wax resist and had satin white glaze inside and light blue outside.