raku firing!

Saturday was exciting. Not only are all the reduction firings complete



and I found my stuff...



but we got to do a small raku firing!

This was the remainder of my class who showed up this last day



We had 3 firings to do. All my stuff was in the first firing. Here is the kiln all packed ready to fire initially (photo from through the top vent hole).



then we fired up the raku kiln



And went about wadding up newspaper while we waited the ~45 minutes we needed to for the firing to be done.







You can see my stuff glowing orange inside from the top vent



Finally we went ahead and shut off the kiln, opened it up, and put the super hot pieces into the garbage cans of wadded up paper. Since we only really had JUST enough people to do a raku firing... there are no pictures.





Judy's neato tea pot went in the kiln next



this is how it came out. Cool eh? I think it's pretty.



btw... this is how my raku stuff came out









Saturday was a good day for raku.

glazing glazing glazing

for the last 2 classes, I've just glazed the various things I've made.

3 items have been glazed for raku firing... scheduled for the next class. The rest have been put on the reduction cart.

playing catch-up

so, I've ended up having to miss like 2 classes due to the legislative district caucus (and training thereof). Totally worth it, but still, 2 days that I could have been throwing and whatnot. :(

Then I had to miss this weekend's class too cause I was down in Bend, OR running a 10K for part of a relay race called Pole Pedal Paddle.

I learned that May 10 was the deadline for beginning new wetclay projects, and this weekend was the deadline for having stuff on the bisque cart. I ended up working on a tight schedule to be able to get as many things made as possible to accomodate these deadlines.

I can't remember what I managed to do on which weekend, but my current projects are in these states:

* I threw the components for 2 clay goblets on the wheel. One squatter one I threw in 2 pieces and attached later. The larger goblet... I actually threw the chalice upside down on the wheel!! ... pinching closed a half-sphere and trapping air inside. I then threw a stem thing for it, and attached that while it was still on the bat. Later, when it was set up a little, I cut the chalice off of the bat and compressed the rim edges on the wheel. These are kinda exciting pieces.

* I attached 2 spouts for the little teapots (one that looks like a bubble, and one that looks like a beehive). I decided they were too small for handles tho. The lids seems to fit fine atleast. The bubble pot developed an S crack in the bottom while drying, which is a bummer. I'm hoping to be able to close the hole with glaze.

* I made some dealie bob for my friend adam to microwave pasta sauce with (while still in the jar) and prevent it from splashing all over his microwave. I warned him that it may not really microwave well, but he was welcome to try it. Lets call this a custom commissioned piece. This also developed an S crack, but I don't think it matters since it needs to let steam through it anyway.

* I trimmed my interesting patterned bowl, threw another ramen-sized bowl (which is still drying), and then another bowl that didn't want to cooperate, so I tried flattening the sides and making it square. I'm not sure I like how it's come out, but oh well.

* I also made a replacement mug for my friend lien. The mug I gave her for christmas broke while she was washing it. She said the handle just broke into pieces. sad.

This was really all I managed to make this class tho. so, I took my clay and tools home on May 10th and bought a couple of boards covered in canvas, and continued to hand-build stuff at home.

* I made a 3.5"x9" tray thing for my mom's bathroom. Another custom commissioned piece I suppose.

* I made a little 4" square tray thing that may work well as a candle holder.

* and, I made a hand-built teapot.







... after I took these photos, I added a handle, 4 feet, a 3-d leaf on the lid, and carved a fern design onto the sides. It's pretty now.

These I took into the lab and put on the bisque cart on friday last week before leaving town. While there I noticed one of the bowls wasn't bone dry yet, so I had to leave it on the shelf. I will go back in today and see if it's dry yet. The bisque deadline is actually Thursday this week, May 22.

I've not glazed anything yet. Haven't had time. I shouldn't be missing any more classes this semester though, thank god. The second to last class is going to be a raku firing, so I need to decide which of my pieces are going to get raku glazes.

The last class is just going to be a potluck and picking up our finished pieces. fun!

Jacqueline's new class!

I signed up for another community education class again! Yay!

Same class as before (saturdays 10-1pm, + open lab 1-4pm), only a different instructor. Zach apparently got horrible ratings as an instructor (I'm not surprised, he wasn't the warmest person), so now Michelle Summers is teaching this course, and I can tell she is a lot more interested in helping all the students. PLUS the enrollment of the class tripled from the last time I was taking it. The first class was April 5! This last weekend!

First day was a first day. We got our lockers, went over the ceramics lab rules, firing deadlines, and how the course will be run. She took people on a tour of the ceramics lab, and I snuck away to buy my Mac 10 clay receipts from the bookstore. You have to take the receipt to the ceramics lab to collect the clay.

I had to sit through Michelle's throwing demo (always nice to see the basics again), and FINALLY at like 11:30am I was able to get my clay from Michelle.

I made 4 balls, all slightly larger than I'm normally comfortable with, and sat down at a wheel. I tried playing with some of the techniques Michelle showed us, and some of it worked, some of it didn't. A really large, friendly woman, probably late 30's, sat at the wheel next to me. She hasn't thrown in 5 years so was a little nervous about how it would go. On the other side of me sat a very quiet girl in her 20's.

I, inspired by my gift from hana: a BEAUTIFUL sphere that was pit fired, decided to try to throw a sphere. Never thrown a sphere before actually. Really, my underlying goal is to make a teapot (or two, or three, or four) this class. I kinda figure a sphere could be a good shape for a teapot!

My first ball, altho perhaps a little awkward at first with the centering, worked out! Michelle came by to offer some tips to the large lady next to me who was having a worse time than me with her centering, and I listened in...
* Mac 10 takes a gentle touch. you don't have to use too much pressure to work it!
* you shouldn't allow yourself to feel any friction with the clay, if that happens you're working too dry
* make sure to compress and recompress the pot's base, and eliminate any standing water, or extra clay on the bat. These things can all mess you up.

I adjusted what I was doing to take her advice into account, and whoah! the clay started behaving better for me! I pulled a wide cylinder, maybe only 7 inches tall if that. Then I pushed out the sides and pulled in the rim to make it into a sphere. If it becomes a teapot it will be a VERY SMALL one. I bet the final piece will be about the size of the pot hana gave me, actually.

I then used the next ball, and didn't really want to do the same thing (I'm learning that altho the balls are a touch larger than I'm used to, they still aren't large enough to make a larger pot like I need). I really worked this ball cause I was being undecided about what I wanted to do with it... first pulling a cylinder, then making it into a sphere, than changing my mind and pulling the opening outward slightly so that I could put a second pot inside it, and then I decided this pot wasn't quite large enough for what I was thinking, so I turned it back into a sphere... AND THEN I got bored of the sphere shape, and wanted a taller piece, so I straighted the sides of the cylinder, but the top still arcs in like a half dome slightly.

Meanwhile, quiet 20's girl was pulling a sphere. huh. See, that wasn't a shape in the demo even. She was TOTally copying what I was doing. hmmm...

Oh yeah, AND large lady was actually farting quite a bit. That was really gross.

Anyway, at this point I borrowed Judy's calipers (Judy is taking this class again also! she's very sweet, so I was happy to see her again), and tried to throw a couple lids "off the hump" of my 3rd ball. Attempt 1 went badly. Attempt 2 and 3 were better, but I'm not sure any of them will yield usable lids. I need to get my own calipers I think... and a hole punch.

And, then it was like 1:40pm or so... and I had to get to the convention center to pick up my race day packet by 3pm, so I bagged ball #4, cleaned up my area, wrapped my pieces in plastic and put them on our class shelves, and headed out (putting all my stuff in my locker).

It felt good to be throwing again. I can't wait for the next class!
hee.

the teapot is done!

I am very excited to announce that my first teapot is a success! The lid didn't stick during the glaze firing, and water pours out the spout in a nice smooth stream, not an annoying dribble. Very happy with it. Now just to purchase a bamboo handle. I admit there was a moment there when I couldn't get the lid off when I first picked it up. My heart sank; but after a tiny amount of twisting and lifting, it came off. Hooray! I tested the pouring action right away too, in the lab sink. So happy it came out.

I also picked up two other finished pieces. One was the wonky cup thing that I had glazed with Maria's Blue. It came out very well. It's all shiny and smooth and wobbley in just the right way so your hand fits into the curves in a satisfying fashion. Not sure what I could drink out of it; probably something strong that one would slowly sip, since it doesn't hold very much.

I also picked up the slightly curved handle-less mug that I glazed the inside of a dark blue and left the outside naked. The clay really looks lovely all exposed like that.

As far as production. Well, it was our last class to throw stuff. I sat down at the wheel with some 6 balls of 1-2 pound clay, and threw. It didn't go well. I was using the brown clay, and I didn't realize until I got home that I haven't made anything at all out of the brown clay all quarter. Just a bunch of discarded mistakes. Wow. Remind me not to buy that clay again in the future. The red clay threw much, much better. It's softer and listens to you a little better. The brown was just so stubborn, and if you weren't exactly centered before opening, it was all over for that piece. The red was more forgiving, you could make it up along the way.

I glazed the tallish vase from a couple weeks ago, the one with a bottom trimmed to match the teapot. I glazed it with the same floating red as the teapot, so they will match. Not sure what to do with a matching teapot and vase, it's kind of odd.

Also, I trimmed a fairly large bowl I threw a few weeks ago, but I managed to put two little cracks running down about an inch from the rim from pinching it too hard when attaching the piece to the wheel to do the trimming. Oops. I guess that one will be a flower pot, with the cracked bits facing a wall. Oh well, I was too tired to really care.

Also, I was still pretty tired from being sick. My oozy symptoms are pretty much gone, so at least my nose wasn't dribbling all over the wheel, but I couldn't put much strength into the clay (and clearly the clay knew it could get away with acting out). I ended up going home after 2 hours of the 3 hour class.

Next week I'll trim the one measly little ugly shot glass I managed to throw (I threw it thick and tried the technique of cutting facets into it with the wire tool) and pick up the one piece I glazed last night. That's about it for this quarter!

not much going on

I was too sick to go to pottery last night, sadly. I really want to see my teapot!

So, to post something anyway, I just took a couple pictures of my square bowl that I glazed in Maria's Blue from last quarter. I've put some nice violets in it to complement the color.

2/14/08 - Valentine Pottery

Last week I didn't go to class, so this week I had a lot of catching up to do.

My first finished piece was ready today. Remember the pint glass? It's now obviously a large hot chocolate mug with no handle. I think it holds around 10 ounces of liquid, and angles out at just the right depth sot hat it settles into your hand while you're holding it. I had glazed it clear, but the color came out more of a brown. I asked Gary about it, since it was a red clay. You could see the red on the bottom of the foot where there was no glaze, but then the "clear" glaze turned it brown. Apparently the iron in the clay had reacted with the clear glaze to make it less clear and a little brown. Yes, the clay and the glaze react together in firing. Neat! I had also dipped one part in Maria's Blue, which turned out great on my square bowl last quarter, but on this piece mostly just turned the area a kind of yellow with a hint of blue in the very middle of the area, near the rim. I'll post a pic of it soon.

The little teapot was ready to be glazed! I kept holding it cupped in my hands and carrying it around. It just feels good to hold! I wasn't sure how to glaze it since the hot chocolate mug didn't work out as I'd hoped with the clear. I finally settled on using "floating red" to glaze it with. Gary had shown me about 50 test pieces he had made to do glazing experiments with, and a few of them were made with red clay. The floating red looks like it reacts well with red clay to make a color most like the clay itself. The floating red on blond clay doesn't look that red at all. Glazing the teapot was scary. I didn't want to plug the holes in the stem, so I blew into the stem to clear them. Then I made sure to remove all glaze from the rim and the bottom of the lid, in case they needed to be fired together, so they wouldn't fuse together. Fingers crossed.

Let's see. Otherwise, I trimmed a tall vase from a couple weeks ago, glazed another handle-less mug. (With dark blue, I think. The mug is like the pint glass but with curved sides instead of straight.) I threw a quite large bowl with nice shoulders. I think that's the term. It doesn't settle down into a bowl shape; the bottom is fairly steep and then it opens up more. I'm moving away from the sunken look of my earlier pieces. Then I threw and discarded three or four other pieces. Not a very productive night, but a fun one. I was the most sociable I've been in class, like ever, I think.