Journey Workshop Jan 19 - 29

Well I am falling behind in my blog - about a month behind - so will try to remember what was happening.
I tried to work on Steven's suggestion for my balloon pots - to try to get the viewer to realize that there is another side to the story pictured on the front. I made another one and added another balloon protruding at the top at the back, hoping that this will entice the viewer to look at the back. I couldn't really use a wire to hold up the balloon but will add the wire once the pot is fired. I was also able to add a notch on the back side to guide the viewer to that side on the shopping ladies pot.

The rest of the week was spent glazing - it's always so time consuming. I also did a whole series of test tiles - with the stony yellow, Hannah ash glaes and other - with lots of overlapping glaze tests.

Our January gas firing came out on Thursday and I feel that finally I had passable results with the stony yellows/Hannah ash glazes and water blue. I find that the stoneware clays need only .5% iron in the stony yellow to get good colour and up to 2.5% for porcelain. Also on stoneware using a white slip under the yellow also gives it a whiter/yellow look that I am aiming for rather than golden hue. Too much Hannah ochre ash also gives you a browner, golden hue.


The fishing boat ended up looking almost the same as the first one from the December firing. Unfortunately it cracked again on the upper right corner. I may have to try some paper clay on those large handbuilding projects to prevent cracking.






The bowls with the stamped fish on the rim - I have not been very happy with them This time I had used the blue on the fish - so that the stamp and blue colour were all in the same area - otherwise the fish and the blue area competed for attention. However after looking at all those bowls from various firings it seems that the one with just one colour on the rim were the best - the stamp was enough. Sometimes less is more!





The Devolution pot - the lady with the fish hair - turned out not too bad, but unfortunately again has small cracks at the bottom front - may not be large enough to affect it as you have to look closely to see them and they are just surface cracks where I added a bit of clay to the foot.