Glynnis Lessing

KELP!

I’m so excited about these new carvings that I am posting pictures of green, freshly carved pots.

I was recently in Santa Barbara, visiting a family member and once again, I saw a lot of kelp washed up.

Last time I saw it in the water while looking down from the pier. It is most likely giant kelp which grows several inches per day!

This time I was struck by the almost formal arrangements that lay in the sand.

They reminded me of bookplate designs in old books.

When I got home, I looked at photos online taken by people who were swimming amongst the kelp forests.

The difference between beach-bound kelp and underwater kelp is that the blades (or leaves) are floating every which way. Additionally, the blades are often ripped away by the time the kelp has washed up leaving only the rubbery stem and bladders.

In the (extremely copyrighted) underwater photos, you can also see the overlapping as the leaves are actually slightly transparent and although I couldn’t replicate that translucent quality, still, I was really happy with the result.

You’ll also note that I’ve taken pains to make my carving marks as watery and curvy and flowing as the kelp.

I tried to capture that feeling of motion; the swaying back and forth with the currents and surf.

I think what makes this pleasing to me and also creates good visual tension, movement and balance is the contrast between these wildly unpredictable twisting and flowing forms  and the dependable regularity of the spacing between each bladder where it comes out from the stem- each one continuing on into a blade. I know there is some correct botanical  term for this…

Okay, so I looked up Kelp on Wikepedia I found this:

In most kelp, the thallus (or body) consists of flat or leaf-like structures known as blades. Blades originate from elongated stem-like structures, the stipes. [that’s the word I was looking for!] ……. Gas-filled bladders (pneumatocysts) form at the base of blades of American species….and keep the kelp blades close to the surface, holding up the blades by the gas they contain.

and most interesting to me and other potters :

Through the 19th century, the word “kelp” was closely associated with seaweeds that could be burned to obtain soda ash (primarily sodium carbonate)….The word “kelp” was also used directly to refer to these processed ashes.

and what do you know?  The slip that into which I carved the images of Kelp on contains Soda Ash!!

So I can’t wait until these are fired - stay tuned!

Joining Two Thrown Forms

I’m working on something this week that I thought I’d post about:

making really tall thrown forms by throwing two separate pieces and joining them together.

Eric told me something interesting today which I knew happens but never thought about the reason why — technically:

Porcelain is hard to throw tall because- more than other clays-  it just sucks up any moisture you put on it and therefore after about 3 pulls, the platelets (that make up the clay) become too far apart to hold up very well; that is, the more water you add to clay, the softer it gets because the platelets move farther apart to accommodate the water. This is true of any clay but porcelain is one of the worst.

SO- to compensate for my inability to throw really tall work in porcelain, I threw two pieces, measuring the opening on the base  with a callipers

and then making the second piece, which is the top half and will be inverted

I measured the opening so it would match the size of the opening on the base.

Note: I angled the lip – going in and down on the bottom half and in and up on the top half; and then scored the lip.

The angling maximizes the amount of surface area that will bond together – some people add a coil of clay  into the space. I use water to bond the clay but you could use magic water or vinegar to feel secure about the bond.

I left each one attached to its respective bat and let them dry and firm up for about 15 minutes in front of the fan- perhaps longer on a humid day but it’s very cold and dry here today!!

If you throw the base first and then the top, the top will be less dry but that’s okay. It should be a little more flexible and also, it’s not supporting the weight that the base must support.

I reattached the base to the wheel using bat pins (and my trusty but worn Bat Grabber™ instead of clay under the bat.

Then I inverted the top half- it sticks nicely to the bat and lowered it slowly and gently, lining it up as the halves got closer.

Then, once it’s sitting on there, really lined up, my advice is to blend the edges as much as you can before attempting to remove the top bat.

I used a needle tool while the wheel was slowly spinning to cut the top piece from the bat- after I got way underneath, I switched to the wire tool  and voila!

Then I cut away some of the excess clay  so that eventually I can throw a better lip at the top.

The next step is to seal that join from the inside as well and then begin to pull up the pot a bit more and also to make the shape you want in the end through doing pulls, using a metal rib. I wanted the form to be wider, have a bit more of a belly so I did several pulls where I was pushing out from the inside and also went over it a lot with a metal rib.

then, if the clay is not too tired, you can form the lip- also pulling it, choking it in, etc.

*A note on wedging and centering: I attempted to make several of these today- the first 5 pieces of clay I used were, I will confess,  not wedged, as the clay was pretty hard. I did wheel wedge them but they never felt absolutely centered. Close- but then would suddenly manifest some odd wobble or elliptical base.

Then I reclaimed some clay and wedged each piece 50 times- mostly to make sure I got all the clay integrated- porcelain is so fussy. Those pieces with an internal spiral practically centered themselves. They felt well and truly centered and my results were so much better!

Non toxic

Okay, I just heard from a friend who told me she  asked a mutual friend of ours if she was going to my home sale to which she replied,

“Oh you know you can’t eat off of any of that stuff”

or something to that effect Meaning it was full of lead, toxic, etc.

Now I would dismiss this out of hand if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve encountered this

A LOT at my art fairs! People often ask me if it’s food safe!

AND, worst of all!  this person is the partner of a 2D artist!! I always thought of her as intelligent,  well informed and kind of inside the loop.

What I want to know is, how did this perception get started? Is the hysteria all due to some news item on a handful of  pots from  south of the border with their bright colors and oh-so-glossy clear glazes?

I mean, our studio (Lill St.) is extremely strict about adhering to the latest safety guidelines and I can remember them eliminating a popular glaze as the guidelines got even stricter. Not to mention, as many of you know, that most of these materials are utterly bonded and at hi-fire temps even safer. Truly, you have to take a pot with lead or something else bad in it, use something acidic and leave it in there and use it daily to get poisoned.

The best example I can think of is Using some sort of low fire pitcher with a lead glaze for Sangria

DAY

AFTER

DAY

AFTER

DAY.

My lovely, high-fire, oh-so-functional pots are sad when they sit eternally on a shelf gathering dust.     Not only would they never dream of poisoning someone, they COULDN’T.

They don’t have it in them.

They are NON-TOXIC.

I am always happy to hear one has been broken in the line of duty. I mean, I’d rather someone is using them. I was delighted to hear when an acquaintance who owned something by me told me it got broken and she was so sad she couldn’t throw out the pieces but her partner -as a surprise-had it made into a broken piece mantel!

She said one image survived and that was placed right at the center of the mantel. I wish I could see it.

So there you have it, my first RANT- How can people be so UNINFORMED?

Spread the word.

NON. toxic

Sgraffito Workshop

We had a delightful sgraffito workshop Sunday, October 11, at Lill.

 

I started with the basic question of what is slip?

In its simplest form, slip is clay that has had water added to it, possibly pigment and been sieved to make it very smooth. At Lill, we use Grolleg porcelain and Mason stains for colorant.

 

I talked about application. 

It is key to understand how slip works – a wrong application will just come off your pot. 

Because slip is CLAY, it shrinks.  That means you can not put it on a bone dry pot. Your slip will shrink as it dries and simply flake off. 

 

Because it is Porcelain, it shrinks at a slightly different rate than stoneware and therefore when you apply it to stoneware, you have to be more careful that it bonds to the surface or again, it will come off- sometimes even after the glaze firing.

Here is an example of Porcelain on porcelain- THICK and I know (because I watched her) that this was put on with a frosting bag onto leather hard porcelain. This is a photo of the bisked piece- it made it through the drying and firing process without coming off:

 

So while it is pretty easy and forgiving to put a porcelain slip onto porcelain pots,

I have a couple of tips for applying it to stoneware.

 

First of all, the more “wet” your stoneware, the better – although the other end of that spectrum is, that your pot will absorb some of the liquid from the slip and could, conceivably, collapse from absorbing too much moisture.

That is the beauty of the slump mold- it can just lie there, bonding while it dries.

You can see it’s white slip over stoneware if you look at the edge.

It also helps to put it on thinly

and lastly, it helps to burnish it on to further bond it with the surface of your pot. You can do that when the surface is leather hard.

 

What I do for application is fairly ideal; I put the slip on my porcelain pots after they are leather hard and I’ve trimmed them.

I then “carve” (or sgraffito) them while they are still leather hard.

This also reduces my chances of breathing in a lot of clay dust as my shavings are still wet. 

Because those shavings dry quickly and then they do become dusty, I then dump them in a little cup or bowl of water to keep them out of my lungs!

 

Now that the pots were ready,  I started in on the fun stuff.

Basic sgraffito is just scratching through slip. that’s what I did for this rabbit plate.Here is an example of the same technique (and her inspiration!) by one of the students. This is slip over Terra Cotta.

Isn’t that cool?

 

Here are two more examples from the shelves of Lill- these are both with a dark slip and white of the porcelain showing through- quite the reverse!

 

The next type of sgraffito  uses the negative space to make the picture: in this case an octopus.

There are several ways to do this- one is to rough in the basic design without covering the entire pot with slip. This has the advantage of saving time and guiding your design but it can be limiting in that you have to stick with the lines you painted on.

And then after carving:

If you cover the entire piece with slip, it becomes a blank slate upon which, you can draw anything. If I don’t know what I’m going to draw ahead of time, I will paint the whole thing and look for inspiration in the patterns and textures of the slip when it’s on the pot.

Layered slip  gives you some interesting lines qualities- in this case I started with white over stoneware.  Once that was bonded and the piece leather-hard, I put on a layer of black, waited for that to stop being shiny and added a layer of aqua.

I drew fish with simple lines.

Here is the tray with layered slip (blue over green over white on stoneware) I did from the last workshop. It is glazed in Celadon.

Inlaid slip  is the complete reverse of the technique I used to draw the rabbit. There are several helpful things to know when you are inlaying slip. It is probably more important to make your lines deep than wide since you will be scraping off a thin layer of the pot, a shallow line can disappear.  The drier the slip and the pot, the cleaner the line will appear when you are scraping. This is what a partially scraped inlaid piece looks like (black and a little blue in porcelain)

Here is an example of Jeanne’s. Here is the tray in inlaid for the last workshop. It is glazed in Shaner clear mixed with Temoku.

 

Here are a couple more examples of (really great) student work!Seeing this last example reminds me to tell you that:

A.. this technique is great for a delicate and intricate design and 

B. CLAY BURRS- these are the bane of any sgraffito-er’s existence. You must have the patience to let them dry before you try to get them off otherwise they will stick back down onto your pot. Usually they dry pretty quickly as they are so small and sticking up, they get a lot of air around them.

Once they are dry, you can easily knock them off with a brush- another caution: DO NOT use a stiff bristled brush or you will scratch your slip surface. I use a makeup brush. These are idea, soft and easy to find – either in a pharmacy or the garbage on moving day!

RABBITS RABBITS EVERYWHERE

 

Well, after having so many rabbits showing up on my pots,

when I came across an old copy of Watership Down by Richard Adams

I felt I should reread it.

I loved it again and could hardly set it down. 

No sooner had I finished (and urged my daughter to read it) than she found and captured a domesticated rabbit in the park!

Her name is Alice and not only is she beautiful, she’s got a lovely personality.

Now I guess I have a better model than this one who moved into our yard this spring

by the way, the arrow is part of a weather vane in our yard- quite a ways from the rabbit but serendipitously pointing at the rabbit!

Also, he was hungrily looking at our little vegetable patch.

So what is it about rabbits?

Well, we love the Medicine Cards book by Jamie Sands and David Carson.

and what it says about Rabbit is this:

…“Rabbit medicine people are so afraid of tragedy, illness, disaster and being taken that they call those very fears to them to teach them lessons.  …. Here is the lesson. If you pulled Rabbit [card], stop talking about horrible things happening and get rid of “what if” in your vocabulary. This card may signal a time of worry about the future …

The paralyzed feeling which Rabbit experiences when being stalked is Rabbit in the contrary position. If you have tried to resolve a situation in your life and are unable to, you may be feeling frozen in motion. This could indicate a time to wait for the forces of the universe to start moving again.  It could also indicate the need to stop and take a rest. It will always indicate a time when you need to re-evaluate the process you are undergoing and to rid yourself of any negative  feelings, barriers, or duress. Simply put, you cannot have your influence felt until you rearrange your way of seeing the present set of circumstances. It is the way  in which you handle problems that allows you to succeed…”

 

Watership Down calls that frozen state “tharn” and you can get locked in it

I do feel we are/I am in this state recently and admit, I find it helpful to learn these things- that we’ve got some rabbit energy going right now.

However, I still wonder if that’s why I’m drawn to them right now to put on my pots; what they mean to me personally perhaps without all the reading.

Certainly I’m excited to see “wild” animals in the city and visually, I love drawing the texture of their fur and their ears and faces.

I wish I could capture more of their motion.

Alice, when we put her in a little fenced in area outside, does this lovely little leap where she seems to kick out once she’s in the air. It gives the illusion of flight, of a momentary suspension in the air.

It’s wonderful; I wish I could do it.

Ah, there it is, perhaps I’m hoping, after waiting quietly that once the universe does start moving again, I get to fly.

Just a little.

The Krasl Art Fair

The Krasl Art Fair

 

Wow.  That was something!

This time we rented a dodge caravan “stow-and-go” where the seats tuck into the floor leaving it flat. It was WONDERFUL!  We brought both the kids and they were on one side, one behind the other and then there was room for all the long pieces of our tent and display. I will say we really crammed that vehicle to the gills!

Once again, the trip was in rain, but light rain and a much shorter trip and the skies cleared up in the end.

We got there mid-afternoon, checked in and set up. Let me say, load in is very easy – we had good access and the fair is very very organized.

We were utterly delighted with our site as we had an unobstructed view of one of my favorite things in the world: LAKE MICHIGAN. We had a lovely cooling breeze off the lake both days.

This was the first time with our brand new tent and because we had practiced in our garden, it went pretty smoothly. It took us about 2 hours to get the tent and all the shelves up.

Both kids helped. Of course I didn’t set out the pottery – that would go up the next day- I asked another potter setting up and she didn’t either.

I went to the artist reception- good food. There was a fair amount of good, FREE food for this fair, again making it a really easy fair to be in.

Saturday morning as I lay in bed, I heard thunder and thought, “OH, NOoooo!” But as we drove back to St. Joseph, the light rain stopped and the skies cleared. It was a beautiful day!

We arrived and I put out all the pottery, unzipped the tent and was open for business. It took just over an hour.

I was awfully tired; I had slept really badly the night before and I had a head cold so I was feeling pretty sorry for myself until I heard a baby crying nearby and looked across at a booth nearby and saw a younger couple setting up with a baby in a stroller and she had a cast on one leg!  There is always someone else who has it harder than you. On talking to her, I learned she has THREE children under 8!!

Still, I was sitting too much and sales were slow until the artist next door came over and gave me a pep talk and some tips and really energized me.

I tried to do everything she told me and things improved from there on.

I also realized many many, many of the patrons walk the entire length of the fair (216 artists this year!!) before they buy a single thing. One woman told me she would come back on Sunday.

Now that’s stamina! Because, let me tell you, after it got started, it was just a steady wide stream of unending humanity going past the booth.

Most people were lovely. Even if they didn’t buy, they were complimentary.

The only annoying experience I had was a woman who was going to buy two mugs and when I told her 70 + tax she was shocked. She thought they were 5$ apiece!  That was certainly one of the themes of discussion among artists.  So often, people have no idea nor appreciation of the amount of time we put into our work. All the mass production, like at Pottery Barn, Ikea, etc. make people balk at paying the little that we do charge.

One the other hand, I had a couple of WONDERFUL customers who made the entire fair worthwhile. One of my students drove all the way from Chicago to see me and I was so flattered and happy to see her!

Another couple came in just loving my work, making me feel special and bought up my nicest things without batting an eye. They were from Chicago too and even invited me to their house. They also had a wicked sense of humor and there was much laughing and wittiness in my booth at the end of the day I can tell you!

For the night, we took all the pottery off the shelves and stacked it back in the bins, zipped down the sides and changed into our bathing suits.

At the beach I staggered into the water and just floated there until I got too cold. It was SO great to not be on my feet! We ate at the beach and watched the sunset. It was WONDERFUL.

In the morning, better rested, the pots went out again in roughly 45 minutes.

The baby across the way was in a better mood, All the artists were spiffed up and it was a gorgeous day. Sales were less but a little more steady.

I took some time in the morning to look around the fair- here are some artists that caught my attention:

First of all Dragon clay was there again and I got to meet him. He was so nice and answered all my questions.  I’m still not over his work- so exquisite!

I also kept revisiting Weaver Tile (www.weavertile.com) lovely people, fellow Morel Mushroom hunters and eaters!

Gene T. Brown whose work we’ve bought in the past at the Port Clinton Art Fair;  great little paintings usually involving animals. Lots of lovely solid colors and simple shapes and images. He told me he is easing into writing children’s books and illustrating them. I wish him luck!

I was also quite taken with Terrel Powell’s paintings which were large “naive” or perhaps I should just say whimsical paintings of birds and other animals in bright bold colors. (Sadly, he has no web site)

A couple from Argentina came up here to do art fairs for 2 months.  Their work is really cool. www.artejuela.com.ar   I was quite drawn to their work- it looks a bit mosaic-y and a bit early 60′s hip to me. Intricate and jewel-like.

Greg Jordan-  jewelery I was crazy about but didn’t allow myself the splurge  JordanFineArtJewelry.com  My favorite is a blue “egg” in a cage and house earrings.

My daughter was quite taken with David Conroy’s work; someone who obviously spent way too much time in the tool shed as a kid- all his jewelry is made from nails and hardware- and it doesn’t look it! (also no web site)

 Last, but certainly not least, was my guardian angel (best) neighbor (ever) Judy Zeddies who clearly, wanted me to get off my butt so she could draw my chair.Really cool prints although a little “dark” (just kidding! Inside joke!)…………Check out the etchings.

 Everyone around us was delightful. Warm, friendly and helpful. One artist gave the kids a coloring book of her work and another came looking for my son to show him the Cecropia moth she had found at the beach. Luckily, I knew all about them from my childhood hobby and even more luckily, there was a black walnut tree RIGHT behind us that the moth could lay her egss on! Then my son was called upon to extract an inchworm from another nearby tent. He was in bug-heaven.

Finally, it was time to pack up. The rushing river of people dwindled to a trickle and we all started to take down art, displays and tents. It took us about 2 hours, I think the hardest was fitting it all back into the van! and I  had one less bin!
I can’t believe how hard people work. Remember, they all spend the weekdays MAKING the work and then on the weekends trek to art fairs, set up, sell all day and take it all down again. One woman in the artists hospitality area had 2 kids both under 11 and said they do THIRTY shows a year!  Another couple had a double tent and were still packing up long after we had packed up and were done with dinner but they didn’t even need to speak to eachother to coordinate the taking down of the tent. They had a routine.

We had to go to the beach to empty our sandbag tent weights so we stayed for one last sunset (sigh)

And headed home arriving at 11 and THEN unloading the van again. How do people do it?

All in all a really positive experience and a good fair.

 

Week 4 Slip ‘n’ Surfaces

Week 4 of Slip ‘n’ Surfaces

 

This week we:

Talked about slip application

Didn’t remember to talk about surface preparation (I will now)

Stencils -newspaper resist

Slip transfer – painting onto newspaper

Eric Jensen method reprised with netting

Foot-of-the-week: thrown on foot & pedestal foot

Lip-of-the-week: added coil

Glaze-of-the-week: Shaner White (with a nod to Coleman’s Apple green)

 

Despite this being the last class     I feel like I gave out a lot of information this week and there seemed to be something for everyone.

I started by talking about slip application as I had come upon something while I was doing my own work that I know about but it’s not often addressed.

I had made a platter  and when I applied the slip, the slip was fairly thick. I show the (unfired) platter here

in contrast to the (bisked) rabbit casserole

which had  a thinner slip application due to the slip being of a thinner, slightly more watery consistency. It’s easier to do finer work with a thinner layer of slip. If you have to draw your lines and do your carving through a 16th of an inch of slip, it is easier to be more clumsy and also to break off little chunks – pointy tips of leaves, etc. You also tend to get more texture when you are carving through a thicker application of slip. It’s hard to see here as I don’t have a good, in-focus photo of the bird platter. 

I then meant to talk just a little about preparing surfaces for slip- I like to eliminate throwing rings with a metal rib when I am throwing and to smooth away the canvas marks with a soft rubber rib when I am handbuilidng. If you are going to put in a drawing or pattern, you don’t need an uneven surface interfering with your image.

Conversely, sometimes a nice layer of slip can hide flaws in a surface.

 

I did again my popular “Birches” demo where I lay down strips of newspaper and paint over them with blue. Karin immediately did a wonderful fern stencil.

Doesn’t that look cool?

 

I took another porcelain tray that was almost too dry to demonstrate newspaper slip transfer. I painted on the paper and then scratched through the dots

 and pressed it onto the surface of the tray. I had little success until I got the tray a bit wetter and the soaked the back of the newspaper  to encourage the slip to migrate onto the clay surface. Then I did it again with black slip.

Actually I did a little more to it so it looks better.

Foot-of-the-week: thrown on foot & pedestal foot

I then reprised the Eric Jensen method but with netting (avocado bag and onion bag) pressed into the slip before the slab is thrown out. Really, I was just trying to make a bowl to throw a foot onto.(also already seen in this blog)  I think it was quite successful.

and then on! to a tiny pedestal foot – I just made a little pinch pot and the foot was a very small ball of clay pressed to make a hemisphere and attached to the pot.

Lip-of-the-week: added coil

For this I made another little pinch pot, rolled a coil and then ran a damp sponge the length of it to smooth it and also to give it more of a “thrown” look.

Scored both the edge of the pot and the underside of the coil and pressed it on for a nice finished look.

 

Glaze-of-the-week: Shaner White

will actually show quite a bit of detail from slip beneath it but dilute the color- making it almost pastel. I found this out one time when I had a completely senior moment and glazed no less than 9 pots in Shaner White instead of Shaner Clear.

Here is the result:mind you, I did still wet my pots down to absorb less glaze as I always do for Shaner’s Clear. Sure, my technique is automatic- I just need to get the right bucket!

Not the end of the world.

We also found this piece on the glaze cart and it shows  slip under Shaner White nicely.

This looks like blue and red iron.

But my favorite thing to do is rub it off the raised surfaces and here is the lovely (if I do say so myself) result on B-Clay of Shaner white dipped and rubbed off over Mazerine Blue Slip. You can see that it’s uneven. Also, the photo makes the clay just a bit more orange than it really is. (Nice photos by Guy Nicol)

Here is another piece found on the glaze cart-  Coleman green over carved black slip. as  you can see it is transparent. But also very

very 

green.

 

 

Student work,

Here is Terry’s foray into wipe away etching. Note how she had a colored slip over the clay and the wax protected it.

Here is Nina’s carved oxide piece all finished:

 I think it turned out nice!Under clear. If you check that last post you can see this pot bisked.

 And last but not least, Nina’s fascinating inlaid slip. the twist is, she inlays it into black slip which was applied early on and burnished. That’s why there are two shades- some is scraped where she was cleaning up the inlay. She used a syringe to inlay the white slip. Good idea, eh? and neat pattern!

So thank you everyone for wonderful contributions and participation. It was really a great class that I looked forward to every week. What a pity it was only 4 weeks!

True Story

 

I was up in Minnesota for Christmas vacation with my family in 2006 when my friend Jill calls me.
   

“How many of those tree bowls did you make?” she asks me.

“Well, about 10 or so,” I say, “why?”

“Just wondering.”

A few days later we are talking again, 

“Do you sign all your work?” 

“Yes, inside the base.”  

“How much do you usually charge for one of those tree bowls?”

“Oh around $120 if it’s flawless. Why? What’s this all about? Did you want to buy one for your mom?”

“Well…. my mom says I shouldn’t tell you but my husband says I should…”

“Oh my gosh, just tell me. What?”

“I ….. found one.”

“What? one of my tree bowls?”

“Yes. “

I rapidly run through the various bowls and where they went to- one was donated for something…“Found it? where? Salvation Army? Discount Village?”

“No….”

“Well where then?”

“Marshalls. “

“WHAT? Really? Marshalls??”

“Yup, Marshalls. I wouldn’t even let them wrap it up, I carried it home in my arms.”

“How much was it?”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“Come on!”

14.99.

 

So then I sent her the following email including a photo of a tree bowl I had sold the year before to someone who was going to give it as a wedding gift:

Dear Tree Bowl™ Owner,

Welcome!  You are one of a very very elite few to own a limited edition (only 10 made!) custom made Tree Bowl™.

Your Tree Bowl™ is priceless. Each one is individually hand made and carved by acclaimed artist, Glynnis Lessing©.

Your Tree Bowl™ has a life-time warranty available only from Glynnis Lessing©. This entitles you to free replacement or repair should any flaws appear in your Tree Bowl™.

Note: this warranty only available to original owner who has purchased directly from Glynnis Lessing ©.

Your Tree Bowl™ is dishwasher, microwave and oven safe.  Please use with care and you will be able to enjoy your Tree Bowl™ for your entire life.

 

 

and she sends me back a photo of the one she bought.

Here is that photo.

Same bowl.

We will never ever know the exact story of how that piece, individually carved and signed, ended up in Marshall’s for $14.99

But it keeps me humble.

 

 

Week 3 Slip ‘n’ Surfaces

What we did this week:

Inlaid Slip

slip trailing (unsuccessful)

foot-of-the-week: over a rolling pin

lip-of-the-week: stamped  or paddled

glaze-of-the-week: josh green

 

We had a really good time inlaying slip and everything else was a bit of a wash.

What you need for inlaying slip is either a drawing stylus of some sort- the wooden sticks I like so much, for example. Or a shape or texture to press in. This can be anything from lace, to a cookie cutter to a wheely tool you find at the junk store (thank you so much Nina!!) The latter was SUPER fun to play with and ideal for inlaying slip.

You also need a fairly even surface (no throwing rings for example) on a leather hard pot.

Carve in or press in your design and then  paint slip into the lines in  whatever color you desire. I have already written about this in another blog entry.

Then, and this is key!!, Let your piece get almost bone dry. It can get all the way bone dry but it is very brittle then. I think if you have just a hint of moisture left in the pot, it is a little more resilient and holds up better to the scraping you will be doing.

Once the surface is chalky dry you  take a metal rib and scrape off the excess slip in long even strokes.

IF the surface is too wet, the clay will just close over your lines and your inlaid slip won’t show. It will look “blurry”.

Here is a piece Nina and I did together with that tool.

 

I then tried to do slip trailing with what I thought was pretty thick slip but it still ran way too much.  Then I tried to blot it with a newspaper and reapply the excess as a transfer. What followed was a very amusing discussion of rorschark prints. This was one of those cases where you have to learn from the teacher’s mistakes and get the principle of the thing as there is no success from which to take example.

 

 

lip-of-the-week: stamped  or paddled

If your lip is sufficiently thick, you can take a stamp or some sort of texture and go around the lip pressing into it.  It gives the lip a texture and compresses it and also, in that it has its own character, it gives it some presence which is sufficient to give a starting and ending to the vessel.

 

foot-of-the-week: over a rolling pin

This too was an unsuccessful demo- as much due to the shortness of the clay (poor batch of reclaim) as my ineptitude. Once you have the base of the pot established, you tap it down over a dowel or rolling pin. then turn it 90 degrees and do that again-the result being kind of an inset cross and 4 “pods” or legs. I realized after doing it on a bowl that it is so much better on a closed form as it deforms the inside bottom. It worked wonderfully on my little “cow” pitcher.

 

glaze-of-the-week: Josh Green

Although I failed to talk about this wonderful glaze, I had brought an example and certainly I can make up for that lack in my blog.

Josh Green is in some ways a super fussy glaze in that any little drip or overlap will show- it is exactly opposite of Shaner clear in that way but  it also has a great breaking quality and shows off Red Iron (in oxide or slip form) very nicely as you can see in the lid of this inlaid box.

Here I put it over iron oxide which was wiped into the “cracks” in my giant urn. photo before,

after

 

What’s wonderful about Josh is that it so often looks like the patina of an old bronze for example and is really my fall back choice  for stoneware when I want to show off a texture or desire  a more matte glaze than Celadon. It is somewhat unpredictable but I find it consistently falls within a range of results, all of which are acceptable outcomes for my pots.

*Josh Blue is less transparent and just not as interesting to me as the green.

Week 2 Slip ‘n’ Surfaces

What we did this week: 

 

wipe away wax etching

line sgraffito

negative space sgraffito

foot-of-the-week: peg legs

lip-of-the-week: tool planed lip

glaze-of-the-week: celadon

 

We had an added bonus this week as Nina shared her results from a wax etching technique.

(nina’s temoku bottle)

You paint wax in any kind of design on bone dry porcelain  

You can use B clay too; I don’t recommend stoneware or any grogged clay as wiping those clays raises an unattractive gritty surface.

Once the wax has thoroughly dried, take a quite wet sponge and start wiping the surface as you want to wash and wipe the the top layer of the surface away. The wax will protect the clay under it.

You can even do it over colored slip as this person did.

 

What I wanted to demonstrate in this class was the 2 basic types of sgraffito: line drawings where the decoration is the line which is the color of the clay underneath

 This is black slip over porcelain

and the opposite of that where one carves away negative space, leaving one’s images out of the colored slip. This latter is the type that I usually do.(yes, yes I look old- my son took this)

I recommend using wooden sticks instead of needle tools for line drawings as they have a much nicer line quality and don’t raise a burr-even a nice sharpened pencil will do. 

I also use a fluffy makeup brush for clean up (you can see both tools on the left side of the photo); waiting until the little burrs are stiff and dry and then brushing them away with the big soft brush. A stiffer brush could scratch your slip or push the burrs of slip back down onto the surface, re-adhering them.

 

foot-of-the-week: peg legs

Last week I talked about peg legs but had no images. This week I demo’d them again.

To make sure your legs are all the same size, make your balls of clay all at once and make them uniform. Then roll them into legs.

Score both the surface of the pot and also the leg where it’s going to attach. I use water to adhere.

Once the legs are on, you can make sure they are even and won’t rock despite not being able to turn over your wet pot,  by setting a board on top of your upside down form.

 

lip-of-the-week: tool planed lip. 

One of the options for a lip on a hand built or (less common) a thrown piece is the machined lip.

I demonstrated both these tools as ways of finishing lips on handbuilt pieces.

I like them both although I have much more experience with the Sure Form which you can buy in any hardware store.

The other  (an “edge rounding tool”) gives a much smoother, burnished finish than the Sure Form and also compresses as it goes. I ordered mine for roughly 20$ from Bailey’s Ceramic supply. 

Neither of these should be used on very wet work. They really work best (or at all!) on leather hard pots. And don’t forget! The Sure Form only works in one direction but it corners beautifully.

I don’t have any good photos of the results. I’ll try to rectify that in the future.

 

glaze-of-the-week: celadon

This is a very dependable fallback glaze. It looks great on stoneware and has a lovely clear green-tinted quality. The big benefit of Celadon is it is clear enough to show your designs but doesn’t look dead on stoneware as Shaner Clear does. It doesn’t absorb iron like the Shaner does and it looks great over blues and greens.

Here it is over Here it is over blue and green and white. This is from when I layered 3 slips (first white, then green then blue) on stoneware.

We also had some really cool student work this week that I thought I’d show:

This is Jamie’s inlaid oxide under Celadon piece

Terry’s delightful foray into slip carving (unfired)

And Nina’s discovery that you can “slip carve” with oxide if your pot is too dry to apply slip!

This is black oxide on porcelain applied and carved bone dry  (don’t inhale the dust!)

Finally, we got back  the demo piece from last week showing what Shino water over white slip on stoneware looks like:Sadly, this is the ONLY photo of it intact as I was traveling home with too many loose pots on the back seat and had to slam on my brakes and even though many ugly pots survived, this one now has a chip out of the rim.  Note the Shino Glaze on the rim and some orange blushing but I didn’t leave any actual glaze on the inside.