Back in the summer, I made some vases that are very different from anything I've made before. I saw pieces that were something similar in a gallery in San Antonio, TX and thought I should give it a try. Two of them were fired in the reduction fire a few weeks ago, and I was tickled with how they came out.
This weekend, I started working on some more. I start with rolling out a slab, pressing a leaf into the clay, and cutting out the shape I need. These vases have two sides. Each side gets placed in an empty bucket to give it some curve as it dries to leather hard. I've found that letting them sit overnight with a piece of plastic draped over the ends of the buckets works pretty well.
Once the clay is dry enough, I take the slabs out of the buckets, stand them up, and join the edges. The result is a tall, football shaped vase. After the edges are joined, I attach a slab to the bottom. When I'm sure that all the joints are sealed and smooth, it goes into the wet closet to dry for a few days.
On the vase pictured here, I used a rubber leaf mold that we have in the studio. I have also made some vases using leaves that I collected from the yard. I'm still experimenting to see what works best.
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