Turning up the heat.

Despite the current heatwave I have been using the incinerator for some more smoking.
I am very pleased with the latest work to emerge, here are some pictures:-

Smoked 'Love Bird' pods (~15cm height)

Wrapping work in foil before smoking is producing some great results, the pods above were foil wrapped, as were the two vases below. The trick seems to be not to wrap too tightly so that some smoke can seep in to the foil.

Smoked vase (~15cm height)

Smoked vase with hole (~15cm height)

My first smoking of these vases was dissappointing as very little smoke had managed to get to the vases. Re-wrapped with foil much looser and into the incinerator again, much more successful.
















Love the pale grey smoke marks on this.



















I also masked some pieces with slurry again, here are two vases:-
The 'Zebra' vase fell over in the incinerator which is why I think that one side is darker.-

Smoked 'Zebra' Vase (~15cm height)

Smoked Fern Vase (~15cm height)

After my holiday I will be busy making more work to continue with my smoking adventures.

Caught smoking in the garden!

I guess not many people ask for an incinerator for their birthday!

Not surprisingly, no such present was wrapped for me back in March! However, I was given money to spend, so had soon purchased a shiny new incinerator.

It took me a while to have time to produce some burnished test pieces to put into my new toy. Unfortunately my first burn was not a success; as I stood nearby and listened to the sound of exploding clay! There were probably various reasons for this, too boring to detail.

Further research, new clay, lots of burnishing whilst sitting in the sun or listening to Radio 4 and Bisque firing to 950 C saw me ready to try again...

Rattle Stones (max 8cm)

I used a variety of techniques to create these and I was very pleased with the results.

I particularly like this stone which had been coated with green slip before burnishing. After Bisque firing, I wrapped the stone with plastic mesh, then painted on slurry, before removing the mesh and smoking, cleaning and a final polish of beeswax.







The next firing/smoking produced this set of 'pods'.

Smoked pods (max 12cm)

These were made using a new clay which is supposed to be good for withstanding the sharp temperature increases found in smoke and pit firing. The different clay may explain the darker colour, but this may also have been due to higher temp in the firing. Lots more experimenting before I can hope to understand the process.

This is my favourite of this set of pods.
Before placing in the bed of sawdust in the incinerator, the pod had been wrapped in newspaper filled with sawdust and a dried banana skin! I believe it is the effect of this skin which has given the lovely bluey-grey mottling.










Another firing (I was on a roll!) saw these pods emerge...

Smoked pods 2 (max 11cm)

Same clay as my first set of pods, but less sawdust and hence less smoke giving a paler colour (I think?).

I wrapped most of this pod in foil, leaving top clear and making 3 slits in the foil, before smoking. Delighted with the result, definitely one to repeat on larger pieces of work.

This pod took on a very peculiar shape whilst the clay was still quite damp when I accidentally knocked it from my work bench! Since the piece was still intact, despite being a very different shape, I decided to let this be a happy accident and continued to finish the pod.
I used spray mount to hold the fern leaves in place whilst covering with slurry, removing the leaves before smoking. Love the clear image of the leaves made by the smoke; another idea to be repeated.

Time to start making more pieces for smoking! 

A runaway success!

My new yarn bowls were spotted at Thrive by a couple of members of the local Knit 'n' Natter group, who thought they were wonderful and that they would be liked by other members of the group, so I was invited to their next meeting. My bowls were greeted with great interest and lots of orders; to date I have made and sold 11 bowls, with another 3 orders outstanding.

Here are some of the bowls which I have sold

This bowl had copper oxide on the rims and in the base of the bowl. After glazing with a shiny white tin stoneware glaze, some pieces of 'sea glass' were placed into the bottom of the bowl before firing. I was surprised when I opened the kiln to see the pink glow; I believe this is due to the tin in the glaze attracting cadmium (which may have been in the glass).

Once again I brushed the rims and base with copper oxide, this time I used a glaze called Copper Red which strangely gives a pale blue colour, normally with no hint of the 'Red' in the name of the glaze. However, this time I did get a hint of red, possibly caused by cadmium again?

This bowl is glazed with marble green which gives a wonderful array of greens and blues.

Copper oxide with vellum off-white glaze. I put a large lump of sea glass in the bottom and croosed my fingers that it would melt well; delighted with the brilliant green!

Copper oxide and Blue-grey glaze. The sea glass in the bottom looked to be a very pale blue so the brilliant blue after firing was a surprise, but a very pleasant one!












Whilst I am enjoying making (and selling) my yarn bowls, I am also trying to make sure to find time to work on other things and to experiment with two new clays, but that's another blog...

Tired but satisfied

As predicted, the Bank holiday weekend was very busy, but also very rewarding.

Thrive's Open Day was a tremendous success for both Thrive and myself, helped by sunshine most of the day and great live music in the garden which created a lovely relaxed atmosphere and made everyone smile. Definitely the best event that I have attended at Thrive to date.

My newest work was very well received; the bird feeders 'flew' off my stall, the yarn bowls were snapped up and I could have sold several of the new triple bowl sets on a platter. I am now busily making more of all these items, especially the yarn bowls which have been requested by the local Knit 'n' Natter group.

The exhibition with West Forest Potters as part of the Henley Arts Trail was well received by all the visitors, not so many sales, but then I was trying to sell my more expensive pieces. My water feature has now found a new home, where I hope it will give lots of pleasure, I certainly enjoyed making it.

Busy weekend ahead

Over the past few weeks I have been very busy preparing for the forthcoming Bank Holiday weekend; I will be exhibiting with West Forest Potters on the Henley Arts Trail and having a stall at Thrive's Open Day on Saturday 4th May.

The last few pieces of work have emerged successfully from the kiln; I have selected 18 pieces of work to exhibit at HAT and gone through the difficult process of pricing everything for both events. I have also made some wooden plinths to display some of my abstract sculptures. I just need to carefully pack everything up and keep my fingers crossed for some sales!

My latest firing of the kiln included mark 5 of my triple bowl design; decided to try a different handle shape this time and I am pleased with the result.

Triple bowl (h~9cm, d~14cm)

I have also been working on several new ideas:-

Triple bowl set on platter

The bowls are hemispheres and sit into indents in the platter which then form the 3 standing points for the platter, definitely a design to develop.

These are bird feeder pods which are intended to have bird food placed inside and then hung in the garden (the little clay balls underneath are simply to support the pods in the kiln and for my photos). Yet to find out whether birds will feed from them!

Yarn bowl in marbled green (h~9cm, d~16cm)

Yarn bowl in blue-grey (h~9cm, d~16cm)

Having been impressed by the yarn bowls on a stand at Unravel-a festival of knitting, it was time to try making some for myself.




















Here are my sculptures sitting proudly on their new wooden plinths:-

Waste not, want not

As a child I was brought up with the idiom "waste not, want not", and throughout my life I have tried to keep to the 3 R's, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Unfortunately, when working with clay, things do not always end up the way they were planned. This means that sometimes I finish with a piece which isn't 'right', but I do not want to throw away. I was reading yesterday about a ceramicist, Pierre Bayle, who built all his imperfect or broken pots into a wall outside his home in France; I have a long way to go before I can build a wall!

So far, I have had 2 attempts to create something in clay to compliment the beauty of this piece of yew.

Both attempts have failed, leaving me with 2 pieces requiring another use. A visit to a local garden centre found me admiring their display of Tillandsias, or Air plants, and set the old cogs in the brain working. Another visit, which lightened my purse by several pounds, and some judicial gluing resulted in a suitable new use and a happy Wendy!

Tillandsia, ceramic and sea-glass (height~9cm diam~14cm)

Tillandsia and ceramic (height~35cm width~11cm)

Being a compulsive beachcomber means that I have a large collection of shells, pebbles and driftwood in various bowls around the house. A gift of 2 deep frames, which my Mum had found in a charity shop, has enabled me to create a display with some of my treasures from beaches; once again putting my 3 R's to good use.

Siligum?

I guess that I am something of a magpie, collecting ideas from other makers at craft fairs, books and the internet; then adapting them for use in my own work.

Last year I went to the Festival of Crafts at Farnham Maltings and was fascinated by some silver sea shell shaped jewellery. The maker was very willing to tell me that she used a product called Siligum to make moulds of shells with which to cast her silver shells. Further research on the internet led me to put this product on my wishlist for my birthday, and I was delighted to receive this just over a week ago.

I had lots of fun last weekend making moulds of lots of the shells I have been collecting over the years. Some particular 'shells' that I wanted to make moulds from were found on the beach of Oakura near Taranaki on the North Island of New Zealand, they are called Spirula, and are in fact the internal flotation chamber of a small sea squid, Spirula spirula, commonly known as the ram's horn squid.

These shells are extremely fragile, so I was very pleased to be able to use my new Siligum to make moulds which I can now use to re-create these beautiful spirals in clay.
Searching through my craft supplies, I found that I still had some Silver clay which I was able to make workable with the addition of some more water, so I soon had a pair of silver 'spirula' ear-rings...
 

I also have made a matching necklace using a larger shell as a mould, but have not taken a photo of this yet.

Now that I have these shells preserved in moulds it was time to use the original shells in a way which I could enjoy their beauty and stop them from getting damaged, so I have mounted them in a deep frame found in a charity shop.

Difficult to photograph without getting myself in the image!