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Friday, December 31, 2004Cat Update New Years Eve...This darn cat is much more difficult to build then I remember. Heads are easy, the basic shape is straight up. With the cat I have to worry about legs, tails, the chest, the head…. It’s coming along. I’ll probably finish the basic shape this weekend. I think I’m going to put Egyptian-type ornamentation on it. The chest and upper body are too big for the lower body. I’ll cut it down this evening. posted @ 06:32 PM CST [link] Picture of the Moment We had over 10 inches of snow the 26th of December. These two heads are what I term 'garden fodder'. They have never looked so good. Today (yesterday, actually) it was 60 degrees outside. 
posted @ 12:03 AM CST [link] [more] Sunday, December 12, 2004A pottery glaze firingI fired a glaze kiln last night: porcelain and stoneware thrown this past summer. It was a very small firing; about a dozen coffee cups, a vase, and a medium size lidded casserole dish. It wasn’t my most successful. Two cups the glaze ran, one cup broke in the firing, and three cups developed fatal cracks while cooling. I glazed the inside of one cup red, and while the color is stunning, it pitted and bubbled in the firing--the pitting makes it junk. I ended up with three decent coffee cups, one small dogwood flower vase, and one nice casserole dish that my mother immediately confiscated. There could be several reasons for the bad firing. If I had to guess I would say the most likely culprit for the cups breaking in the cooling was that I opened the kiln too soon and the cups cooled too quickly. The running glaze can be attributed to a soaking heat—my fault again. The cups themselves were made from left over porcelain clay that had come through the previous winter. The clay had frozen and separated, but I wedged it well and thought it would do fine: it handled beautifully on the wheel, but it could have been a contributing factor in the cracking. There is no real telling. That batch of clay is gone and I won’t be throwing again until late spring. On a positive note the colors were all brilliant: mostly Spectrum cone 6 greens and blues that I had not worked with before. One combination in particular: a Wedgwood Blue exterior, white interior with a Cascade Green rim dipped about an inch. I would never have expected to achieve such beautiful coloration in an electric kiln. . 
posted @ 09:14 PM CST [link] [more] Wednesday, December 1, 2004Building the CatMy hands hurt. Sculpting with clay is physical. All the clay was leather hard--about what you would expect for clay that has sat in a rubber tub for two plus years. I soaked a couple 25 lb blocks into mush and wedged the mush into the leather hard, then rolled out 75 lbs of coils. I have, in the past, seriously injured my right shoulder doing art. I spent six months in physical therapy, so I know the exercises and I know good muscle tone is the best preventative. I’ve been going to the gym in the mornings and working out on the weight machines; working on strengthening my upper body muscles. Christmas break is coming! I’ll have 11 days off that I want to spend in my studio. I started on the cat this evening. It was going to be small, but it grew on me. The tiny cat in the image on the right is my model. posted @ 10:35 PM CST [link] [more] [more] [more] |
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