May 25 - 31 Spraying is Hard to Do!

My spraying is improving! We talked how much concentration it takes for me to spray my pots - with all the different glazes and different thickness. I have to really pay attention to what I am doing and at the end of a spraying session I am beat. So different from before when I would just blast away with mostly one colour! Steven agreed. He also finds that spraying is the most difficult part of his process, while throwing is very relaxing.




In the fish plate that just came out this week I lost my concentration at the end and pressed the trigger a bit too hard blasting darker spots near the upper right hand side. (There is quite a bit of glare on the pot so it is not as obvious in the photo.) Once I realized what had happened, I tried brushing with a stiff brush to smooth out the spot and it might have helped a bit. The other alternative was to wash it all off and start all over again. In retrospect I should have washed it as I find that area really distracting and I had spent quite a bit of time decorating that pot.

The Hannah Blue turned out less harsh and I think it might have been due to some Stony Yellow spray on top. Again whenever I get some great results somehow I seem to have missed out in making notes on it. Note taking is hard to do as well - I definitely need to concentrate more on my notes!

Journey May 19 - 25 May Critique

Well 2 months is waaaay too long without a Steven Hill fix! I was ready well ahead of time for the monthly critique as I had uploaded all my pictures a few days before, unlike most months when I am still frantically getting it all together the night before.




We talked about how my plates had slumped on one side - I guess mainly from being drier on one side. Steven says one way that he prevents that with his large platters is to keep the pots spinning slowly on his extra wheels. I also still have trouble getting a smooth continuous curve in my shallow bowls and seem to end up with a bit of a flat bottom and if my foot in not just outside the flat area the wall will slump. As Steven says with a continuous curve it does not matter where you place the foot. He explained how he makes the continuous curve and I will try his method. I really do need more throwing practice.


We discussed how to get more of a subdued contrast between the Stony yellow and Hannah blue on my latest fish plate. Finally got one that did not slump. I had thought of lowering the cobalt but not maybe adding some cobalt to the yellow. As well I could spray some yellow on the blue. Will try both of those - I could also spray more Hannah Ochre over the yellow than I have been doing - enough to get some ash rivulets which I am not getting now and that would give me a third colour contrast.



We again discussed feet. Unlike some potters whose work is recognizable by their feet, I don't really have a standard foot - sometimes they are round, sometimes narrow, sometimes wide. Steven felt that feet should be round as rims are round and so the foot should match the rim for a unified look. Also a round foot has less surface area to touch a table top and so also less area to sand/polish for a smooth surface.

I had used the center area for my signature as I find that often it gets obliterated by the glaze. I may try rubbing in some contrasting slip or underglaze to highlight the signature.







I had been working hard on my spraying and Steven felt that I had improved in my spraying - both the fishing lady and the cylindrical pot were well glazed, though the cylinder could have had a bit more contrast on the rim. He feels that whenever you have a strong feature you should emphasize it a bit - so a touch of darker brown would have highlighted that a bit more than the thinish layer of Stony Yellow.

In order to get the rim to be continuous and still go to form the loop I had thrown a wide rim, cut it and then added it to the top of the pot, forming the loop and joining the ends on one side of the loop for a continuous look.

Well I will write up the rest of the session next week as I need to go and make some pots!

Journey Workshop April 27 - May 18 In a Holding Pattern

Well I have had a slab pot sitting on the kitchen counter waiting for inspiration for the last three weeks. Originally it was to have some figures appliqued from the "Revolution" book but I just have not been able to get my mental idea into clay. I usually try a few paper cut outs first - but nothing ended up looking right. First of all what am I doing thinking about a Revolution? It all started because I loved the style of the figures in the book made form torn and cut out paper strips.

I also think I ended up with the wrong shape for the vase - sort of looks like a sports trophy - enough to uninspire anyone. I finally tried a bunch of little people appliqued and then covered them with ladder rungs. But I think I will have to use paper clay for the ladder rungs as they will undoubtedly crack when drying.
Not sure if I will finish off properly or recycle.

Anyway it's about a week later and I have not done anything about the piece - I think I should recycle.

Spent some time glazing some work for the May gas firing - did a lot of reglazes - to get them out of the way. I reglaze by heating up the pots in an electric kiln and then spraying.

I need to work some more on my fishing lady series - so I lined up all boat/fishing lady pieces up in a row in chronological order to see where I should go next. I will try and pick out the things that I like about each piece and incorporate them into the next one. I guess that I like the taller pieces best in terms of shape. I also like the wire additions. The figures need to be a bit more contemporary - maybe use some torn clay in places.

Spent most of the last two weeks doing a lot of yard work as my husband was waiting for hip surgery so was not able to help much. Now with my husband home from surgery last week, I can finally get back to clay!

Journey Workshop April 17 - 26 Stress vs Creativity

Well I cancelled my critique session with Steven this month as my husband was supposed to have hip replacement surgery last Friday. In the end the surgery was cancelled at the last minute because of lack of beds. With all our plans turned topsy turvy I was not able to refocus on pots and sort of fritted away the week with nothing accomplished. I should have re-scheduled with Steven as he suggested, but just did not have the energy to get my thoughts together, but now wished that I had as it would have helped to get my act together. Definitely stress has in impact on my creativity and focus - I really don't know how artists that are undergoing major life crisis manage, as a minor thing as hip replacement for my husband has such an effect on me.



We did do another gas firing with some good (but not excellent) and some so so results. I finally figured out how to adjust the spray gun to get just a very light spray (it's just taken me a year to figure that out!) and that has helped to stop all the drastic running with the Water Blue/Green. I just need a very light overspray with that glaze to get things moving.
I like how just a light coat of stoney yellow with .5% Fe looks with a slightly thicker coating of Hannah Ochre - nice light yellow to rich orange tones. My plate with appliqued figures turned out well, expect that it slumped. I am having problems with plates that I have thrown on hydrobats. Somehow I end up with the foot too small so it does not support the sides enough. Together with uneven drying of these 16" plates I end up with slumping on one side. Now that the warm weather has arrived and the furnace is no longer blowing hot air that should not be so much of a problem. Plus a lot of the figures had cracks - I had applied them to the plate after I had trimmed it and it was getting too dry. I think I will try several more of those and see if I can do a better job.






I made the mistake of using Leach White for the interiors of my garlic pots instead of a Temmoku and the white is just too glaring inside and also shows around the figures and seems to clash somehow with the rest of the glaze. Plus there is tiny surface crack in the bottom of one where I whacked one of the pots - you wouldn't have even noticed it with a Temmoku glaze but it is very noticeable with the white. The crack has no effect on the function as it would not leak, is not even a mm deep so is purely cosmetic. The garlic pots were glazed at the end of a long glazing session and I did not take as much care as I should have and it showed. Also the lids ended up a tad small with too much of the unglazed gallery showing.






I tired a new glaze - Caramel - which seems to look good with Hannah Ochre on top - it's smoother to the touch and runs more. The garlic pot with it was the best of the lot. Also I used Alberta Rust for the dark brown on some of the bottoms and I think that i like that better than temmoku as it's not so shiny and my spray both mix which is very dark brown but does not give a good colour with Hannah Ochre over it.


Well I have a couple of stress free weeks until my husband's May 11th rescheduled surgery so I had better make the most of it.

Journey Workshop April 12 - 17 Garlic Pots

With the summer tourist season coming up I have to get some saleable items into the Valley Artisans Co-op. My page on the Artisans website has pre-Steven pots - sort of different from what I am making now.
My appliqued pots that I make now are all big ticket items - selling for $175 to $250 and in this economy and our small town are just too expensive. One hundred dollar to $125 items tend be OK and after that there is resistance.






My large garlic pots sell well for $48 and so I decided to work on some, using as before the people in the window theme - (my "parade" pots) - and seeing if I can update them a bit. Before I would make them squared off with several windows and lots of people as in the top photo of the glazed one. (Has Rhdoes 32 on it).

This time I tried various oval shapes. I put on a slab base and threw the lid and then stretched it as Steven does. I gave the pot a wack with a stick for hopefully a more contemporary look. In order to tie these in with the rest of my appliqued and stamped work I made a stamp of a window frame and used it on the pot and then cut out the window inside the frame.




With another, I appliqued the frame and the back door - all this trying for a more unified look.




I also like effect of the wack which shows the end of the stick. This resulted in a corner and horizontal line impression. I will cut the stick at an angle next time so that the line is truly horizontal and see how well the window fits into that.

In terms of function the pots with a wider top are better as your hand fits in more easily than the one with the narrowed top.

Journey April 8-11 - More appliqued pots

I've been trying to get some inspiration from the picture book "Revolution" - I love the pictures - they are made from torn paper as well as a few cutouts - but the figures are so expressive and yet so simple. However so far have not been able to transfer those type of images into clay. I did do a wall plate - with lots of little figures on it - sort of expresses conflict and hence perhaps revolution - not sure if that comes across. The picture is not very good - will see how it turns out once glazed.

I have continued with the factory ship/fisherwoman. I have tried to simplify all aspects - the shape as well as the figure. Empty net and basket vs the factory ship.





I have managed to make an improvement to the bases of these handbuilt pots. Before I would undercut all around the base. This time I am under cutting, but beveling in the opposite direction where the base curves out. This seems to gie a more polished and elegant base.

To get my point across more about the negative aspects of globalized shopping I have put some logos on the shopping bags. I have also tried to guide the viewer to the back with a different top profile on the back as viewed from the front.






I had a lot of trouble with the homeless person on the back. Just does not seem shoddy enough. At first I tried adding a scarf - but he ended up like a tired Superman. I ended with narrow scarf - though now it looks like a tie - perhaps an out of work Wall street banker?
Anyway having lots of fun with these.

Journey Mar 29 - Apr 7 The Decorated Pot

After my last session I realized that I wasn't always putting form first - I was getting carried away with the decorating, the handles and all the other "gimmicks" that I like - in fact thinking up new "gimmicks" is something that I really have fun with. Fortunately they don't all get used on my pots.

So looking back over the decades I think that almost every single pot that I have ever made has always been decorated in some way before it is glazed - and in a few others I have used the glazes to make a decorative design. Yet I love pots that are simple, undecorated and have a well designed form. Why can't I make those?

We did our March gas firing on Tuesday. We tried some Malcolm Davis Shino in this last firing - but again did not get any carbon trapping. Just could not get the kiln into heavy reduction at 012.



However did get a orange and light grey on some test bottles - orange for the waxed areas - so that might be a start in the right direction. The bottom half of the bottles is a temmoku.



My porcelain plates with the stony yellows - did not turn out that great - one slumped though it is hard to see in the pic. I trimmed it too thin on one side - I guess it just dried unevenly beofre I got around to trimming it. I rather like the diagonal lines, though both areas should have had the lines going in the same direction. I may do more of them on plates.

The other I had glazed too thickly with the stony yellow so the water blue underneath is not vivid enough.



I think also I could have had more layering of other glazes - such as Hannah ochre and Blue as the yellow area is rather boring. They still all look sprayed - somehow I will have to develop more transition areas when I switch from one color to another.