I ran a bisque fire late last week and then glazed my work. I hoped that I would have enough to justify running a glaze fire. Well, I didn't. There's maybe enough for roughly a third of the space in the kiln. That's just not enough.
So...change of plans. Now I am trying to get enough made to run another bisque fire as soon as possible. Because I'm trying to fill up the space with just MY work, I decided that I would make some big things. Big, odd shaped things normally drive me nuts when I'm loading the kiln. But now they are perfect.
My first thought was to do a couple large, drape bowls like this one.
These start with a large slab. I cut out a circle and add texture to both sides.
Next, I drape the slab over a big ball.
A little work to change how the clay "drapes" over the ball.
Add some feet.
Then make an attempt to level them.
After that dries for a day or so, I'll work to smooth off the edges of the clay. When it is firm leather hard, I'll lift it off the ball and flip it over to finish drying sitting on the feet.
Note: if you are wondering about the texture in these pictures, you are not nuts. These are two different pieces. The first one I made had mostly geometric shapes and the second one is more flower and leaf shapes.
The other night, Dixie and I watched a new video that Bill Van Gilder put on YouTube. (You too can watch at https://youtu.be/bkfRNe24cHw if you are interested.) To be fair, Dixie mostly slept through it, but I got all excited to try something new.
These big bowls also start with a slab.
I made a paper template and used it to cut out the shape.
I have two of these bowl shaped hump molds. They worked out perfectly for this.
Drape the clay over the bowl.
Carefully press it down. A clean paint roller works great for this. In a perfect world, I'd have a 4 inch roller on that frame. In case you have not yet noticed, my world is far, far from perfect. This works ok and does not involve a trip to Lowe's.
After it dried to leather hard, I lifted the clay off the mold.
Used a sure form rasp to trim the edges.
Cut a hole in one end for a handle.
I added feet to some of them. I only added 2 feet to lift one side of the bowl.
All of these have a different texture on the inside. So far, I've made four. Two have feet and two do not. The non-footed bowls have a small flattened bottom so they don't just roll all over the place. The slabs started out about 14 inches from point to point. When they are finished, I think they will be between 12 and 13 inches. They are fun to make, and I think they are going to be really cool when they are finished. I hope they are things that people would want to have in their homes and/or give as gifts. In a few weeks, I hope I'll have pictures of finished pieces.
Speaking of pictures, I am working on getting pictures of a lot of the finished work that I have so that I can share them online for folks to shop. I have work at Buffalo Creek Gallery, in the gallery at A Griffin Pottery, and some at my house because there's no more room to store things at the studio, so the picture taking is not as easy as it would be if everything were in one place. On Monday, April 20 I will be using FaceBook to share lots of this. I will be the featured artist on the Local Online Vendor Fair group. I will also put things on the A Griffin Pottery FaceBook page and on Instagram. Stay tuned for more information. I am still turning ideas over in my head about how to best handle this. How should I organize what I'm showing? If someone does want to buy something, I will offer free local delivery, pick up at the studio (where I bring your items to you as you wait in your car), or I will ship for folks who are out of town (as long as you do not mind paying shipping costs). It is a lot to get my head wrapped around. This is one of the reasons that I have not gotten moving on this faster.
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