Of Dragon Eggs and Broken Pots
During the week I got my dragon egg for saggar mostly finished. It's made around wadded up newspaper as per the "clay potato" technique, plus I did go ahead add two chunks of clay inside the paper so they'll rattle around inside the egg after it's finished, suggesting something's inside. Here it is after I added the first vein, as an experiment:
I was pleased with how it looked, so I added 2 more veins. During Saturday's class I finished smoothing the egg's surface out as much as possible, shaped it a bit more, and added a crack so it would look like the egg's inhabitant was attempting to escape. That also conveniently made a nice big opening for expanding air to escape from during firing. I also smushed the veiny bits by paddling them, following a suggestion from my teacher. It makes the veins look a bit more a part of the egg, in my opinion, so I'm quite happy with the effect. Overall I think it turned out pretty well:
This was good timing, since our teacher also did a trimming demo on Saturday (thinning out the bottom of a piece made on the wheel; the bottom is of course stuck to the wheel so there's normally extra clay to get rid of after the piece has hardened up a bit), so I paid close attention to that, as well as to a demo on "chattering" (a technique our teacher hasn't demoed before, so it was new to all of us!). You hold a metal tool up against a piece on the wheel while it's spinning, so that the tool goes up and down very quickly, hitting the piece and leaving marks on it. It was quite interesting and left a neat pattern on the piece used for the demo. I didn't try chattering, figuring I needed to work on the whole trimming thing first. Which was apparently correct, as I had a massive fail on one of my poor pots:
I'm really happy with how the little bowl (the one I rehydrated) turned out, luckily, but it was quite disappointing that I massacred my cylindrical piece. It was rather thick on the bottom, so I thought, "I gotta make sure to trim this quite a bit!", and then promptly trimmed too much. Ah well, it's a learning experience, anyway... And the clay is now chilling out with my other half-and-half, so it should be ready to go again for this coming Saturday.
I didn't do any actual throwing, as the wheels were mostly taken, plus there's a strict deadline for the saggar pieces, so I wanted to concentrate on my egg. I did also manage to roll out some raku clay for my second dragon egg though, the one that will be raku-fired and have a little dragon hatchling coming out of it. I'll have to work on that at home this week, too, since we need to have our raku pieces ready to be bisqued next week. It'll be more labor-intensive, what with sculpting a baby dragon, so I'm hoping the weather improves... It was too windy to have the car windows down today, but would've been too hot with them up, so I didn't get to work on anything during my lunch break.
It's crazy to think that the class is already half done, and really more than half done when it comes to wet clay... We've had 3 class sessions and there are only 6 total, but the last one is strictly glazing. So the end is rapidly approaching! I'm going to try really hard to get my raku egg and hatchling done during the week so that I'll have time to work on the wheel next Saturday. I'm also realizing how much practice I still need on the wheel; I'll definitely have to keep up the focus on throwing during the summer class in order to get where I want to with this.
I was pleased with how it looked, so I added 2 more veins. During Saturday's class I finished smoothing the egg's surface out as much as possible, shaped it a bit more, and added a crack so it would look like the egg's inhabitant was attempting to escape. That also conveniently made a nice big opening for expanding air to escape from during firing. I also smushed the veiny bits by paddling them, following a suggestion from my teacher. It makes the veins look a bit more a part of the egg, in my opinion, so I'm quite happy with the effect. Overall I think it turned out pretty well:
Saggar firing requires applying terra sigillata and burnishing, which you can do either while it's leather hard or after the piece has dried completely. I tried the leather hard route, but found it awkward, so I took the egg home and will try again after it's dry. Then I'll have to cart it back to the ceramics studio mid-week so that can be bisqued before the next class.
During the week I also successfully rehydrated the first piece I made on the wheel, yay! I did end up spraying it a few times in addition to having it in a box with water. It was back to leather hard and ready to go for trimming by Saturday.
This was good timing, since our teacher also did a trimming demo on Saturday (thinning out the bottom of a piece made on the wheel; the bottom is of course stuck to the wheel so there's normally extra clay to get rid of after the piece has hardened up a bit), so I paid close attention to that, as well as to a demo on "chattering" (a technique our teacher hasn't demoed before, so it was new to all of us!). You hold a metal tool up against a piece on the wheel while it's spinning, so that the tool goes up and down very quickly, hitting the piece and leaving marks on it. It was quite interesting and left a neat pattern on the piece used for the demo. I didn't try chattering, figuring I needed to work on the whole trimming thing first. Which was apparently correct, as I had a massive fail on one of my poor pots:
I'm really happy with how the little bowl (the one I rehydrated) turned out, luckily, but it was quite disappointing that I massacred my cylindrical piece. It was rather thick on the bottom, so I thought, "I gotta make sure to trim this quite a bit!", and then promptly trimmed too much. Ah well, it's a learning experience, anyway... And the clay is now chilling out with my other half-and-half, so it should be ready to go again for this coming Saturday.
I didn't do any actual throwing, as the wheels were mostly taken, plus there's a strict deadline for the saggar pieces, so I wanted to concentrate on my egg. I did also manage to roll out some raku clay for my second dragon egg though, the one that will be raku-fired and have a little dragon hatchling coming out of it. I'll have to work on that at home this week, too, since we need to have our raku pieces ready to be bisqued next week. It'll be more labor-intensive, what with sculpting a baby dragon, so I'm hoping the weather improves... It was too windy to have the car windows down today, but would've been too hot with them up, so I didn't get to work on anything during my lunch break.
It's crazy to think that the class is already half done, and really more than half done when it comes to wet clay... We've had 3 class sessions and there are only 6 total, but the last one is strictly glazing. So the end is rapidly approaching! I'm going to try really hard to get my raku egg and hatchling done during the week so that I'll have time to work on the wheel next Saturday. I'm also realizing how much practice I still need on the wheel; I'll definitely have to keep up the focus on throwing during the summer class in order to get where I want to with this.
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