Still Playing With Texture

 You will notice that there are no pictures of glazing in this post.  I didn't have anything to glaze this week.  I could spend all my effort on making new stuff.

I'm still messing around with texture.

I don't know what this is.  Weird vase? Even more weird bowl?  Just something interesting to look at?

Mugs!  Because you can never make too many mugs.

A pitcher.  I should have choked it in a little more narrow above the textured part and/or flared the top out a little bit more.  I swear, I think that about every pitcher I've ever made.  Getting the handle on it actually makes it look better.  It was pretty bad pre-handle.  Hey!  I'm learning and learning is about trying something new that might not work out the first time (or first dozen times) you try it.

This small bowl made me pretty happy, so I decided to do more.  

Here's my next effort.  This is about 4 pounds of clay.  

It started out like this.  Well, no.  This is about step 2 of 3.  I took extra pictures of the next one...

I start with a relatively thick cylinder.  I put a line near the top so I'd know where to stop cutting in the facets and trimmed away a little bit of the clay at the bottom.  I also made this cylinder wider and not as tall as the first one so I'd get a wide, shallow bowl.

See?  Thick - so there's lots of clay with which to work.  (Notice that I did not end that sentence with a preposition.)

About here I realized that professionals probably have someone else to take pictures for them while their hands are messy.  Work with clay.  Wash hands.  Dry with towel.  Take picture.  Repeat.  This picture I actually took with my left hand because that is my right hand holding the rib.  You may be impressed if you like.  

Where was I?  Oh yes.  I cut the facets with the rib.  When my left hand isn't taking pictures, it is inside the pot applying pressure to keep the rib in the right hand from destroying the pot as I worked.  Make sense?  

I went all the way around with the cutting.  

By now, I've thrown out the wash hands step and gone straight to wipe off on towel.  That was a pretty gross towel and my phone ended up with a good bit of clay smeared on it.

Finally, using my left hand, a sponge, and a throwing stick, I stretched the piece out wide to make a bowl.  It would be cool to show you that part, but I'd have to have help to make that happen.  (Note to self: That is a good idea for video next time there are other people around who can help me.)  All the pressure has to come from the inside on this step.  The outside of the pot didn't get touched again.  Well, that's not completely true.  I did use both hands to work on and smooth out the rim after all that distorting.  I was pretty pleased with the end result there, but I hoped to get those facets to twist when I stretched out the bowl.  If you are good, they twist.  

One last try. This time I used a smaller amount of clay (about 2.5 pounds instead of 4) and I began with more of a cone shape.  

This time, I used the corner of a plastic gift card to cut the texture.

And I got a little bit of twist!  I need to start with thicker walls and rims so that I can stretch the clay farther.  The more you stretch, the more it twists.  At least I think that's what happens.  

Last Week's Firing

I have learned that whatever picture is first in a blog post is what shows up on Facebook when I share the link.  So that's why those utensil holder/vases are first. The texture did nice things with the glaze didn't it?  Very pleased.  

Here's a shot of everything that was fired last week.  I had to stand on a stool to get up high enough to get them all in one picture.  

A close up of one of the two red crackle bowls.  This is such an interesting look I think.

Another bowl in one of my favorite glaze combinations.  It almost always does what I expect it to.  I love how the tan glaze is darker next to where the red overlapped it.  Cool.  

More texture.  I decided that this glaze was a little bit too thick, so I thinned it out a bit before I used it again.  What?  I didn't mention that I had more glazing to do last weekend?  Well, I did.  I don't know who keeps making all these pots.  It certainly doesn't feel like I'm working all that hard.  But for 3 weeks straight, I had piles of glazing to do.  As you know, glazing is my favorite part of making pottery.  <sarcasm>

I had 6 mugs in all this stuff.  Two each of the glaze combinations that are shown here.  They all turned out nicely.  No surprises.  

Ah!  The lidded casseroles.  This green and tan one looks very nice, doesn't it?  Unfortunately the top cracked as it was cooling.  Very weird and I have no idea why that happened.  I can't sell that piece.  Jeff was very excited when I brought it to the kitchen and told him that we get to keep this one.  That cracked lid might never be a problem, but it might break the very first time that it is used.  If so, then I'll have a casserole without a lid.  Bummer.  

This one didn't crack, but the lid warped just enough in the kiln that it doesn't fit well anymore.  I wasn't happy with that development because everything else is great about the piece.  Plus, those casseroles are a LOT of work.  I was very bummed to have both of them flawed after working so hard on them.  I do have this one for sale, but I priced it lower than I would normally.  So if you want a deal, check it out at Buffalo Creek Gallery!  

I Glazed, I Loaded The Kiln, I Made Some Pots

The first thing I did this weekend was get glaze on all these pieces.  I was feeling very smug about how well that was going too until I realized that I used the WRONG green glaze to touch up a couple of spots on the lidded casserole.  Instead of washing it all off and starting over (what I probably should have done), I just added more of the wrong glaze so that it looked like I did it on purpose.  

Then I loaded up the kiln.  If luck holds, I'll have some finished things to show you next week.

I also made a few new pieces. I'm still experimenting with the new textures.  Allen said that I really needed to see how far I could stretch the clay out after applying the texture.  So I tried it.  The pieces in white are the really scary stretched out pieces.  Did I mention that this was scary?  Really pushing a piece as far as it can go before it collapses...I am NOT comfortable with it.  

Meanwhile, Gail was giving a demonstration for a couple of her friends.  She's going to be so happy that I'm sharing this picture.  Seriously, she was doing a GREAT job explaining what she was doing.