Moving Forward

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Tuesday was the most recent class, and we got our saggar pieces ready to go. I forgot to take pics of that, but this time I sprayed the solution (iron something or other) on instead of painting it, which gives more of a speckled look when you spray lightly as I did. For combustibles, I used a little horse hair, a sprinkling of salt, some steel wool fibers, and a sprinkling of the largest fertilizer pellets we had available.

Next, I finished up a raku toadstool that I had started before class:

I really like how that came out and I think it'll be awesome in my garden. I intend to use some underglazes on the top to get some bright colors, in addition to the raku metallics.

Finally, I did the slip trailing on my last dinosaur plate. It was really, really difficult to get even and not smear it or anything. It came out ok, but I think I should have waited until the slip was thicker. I could definitely use some practice on this technique.

At the end of class, I also rolled out 3 slabs of cone 10 clay (412/stoney white, to be precise), so that I could continue working at home. I want to make 3 more plates, 1 for bubble glazing, 1 for mocha diffusion, and another for a gift for a friend, which I will be carving with a design. Plus there's the dragon egg, and possibly another raku thing for my garden. I actually was able to start on some of that already; I've got 2 plates mostly done and the dragon egg assembled. It still needs to be paddled, shaped, and smoothed, which I hope to do tonight.

I'm also hoping I might somehow squeeze in a salt and pepper shaker set; that was a challenge from our teacher and I'd really love to make those. Time is running short though, as next Tuesday will be the last day for wet clay. I've given up on trying to make the large dinosaur for my garden; that's going to have to wait for the fall class session.

Anyhow, there's no shortage of stuff to do for pottery!

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