Ceramics!

                             

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the ceramics I have been getting back... it has been a mildly frustrating experience(colors don't come out the way I expect... too much glaze, too little glaze, cracking, etc...) and yet an extremely gratifying experience.



I find that the things I don't like(the unpredictability of glaze causing muddy ugly crappiness) coincide with the things I love(the unpredictability of glaze creating joyous new things!). I am learning slowly each time I get a batch back, of how I should glaze my next pieces. I am quickly learning less is more when I have a complicated form.




This is a mug that I expected to come out mostly rusty orange, with a red rim and a couple red splashes.
See all that white? It was a side effect of the red being too thin(when Cranberry red is thin it goes white). I also learned I put way too many iron filings in the clay which littered it with all those metallic dots. This is a perfect case of  Goldilocks. Last time I had too few, now I had too many. NExt it'll be juuust right.

I did end up loving the weird rockiness of it, happy accident.

Here are a few more of my coil pot. It was not thrown on the wheel, I placed a whole bunch of thin coils next to each other in a bowl and then smoothed them out on the inside to connect them. Then I had to put 3 feet on it. This piece was supposed to be allllll rust orange on the outside with red highlights(like on the mug above) with teal on the inside, but of course the red turned white since it was too thin... and also the orangey red turns metallic the longer it sits out before firing... soooo not exactly as I hoped. 

On top of that, it cracked down the side, luckily it is stoneware so it is still very strong(like granite). 

This is one of the cases where less would have been more. I should have dipped the outside in only one glaze so I didn't mask all the coil work I did. Bah. At least I learned a lesson.

I love the Turquoise matte glaze. It ends up looking like real turquoise stone if it is thick enough. Unfortunately if it is thin, or TOO thick, it turns into black.

Another case of Less is more. The crazy glazes I did(that pink should be red),  masked up the carving work I did. Oh well. Cool effect anyway.

Here is another mug I did in the same colors as the orange/red one up above. I made a pour spot, and two lip grooves for sipping.

I actually like the massive amount of iron filings on this one since it didn't go quite as dark, still that White should not be there.

I am really sad all the intriate carving I did got muddied up by all th glazes I tried out in this blue bowl... Also, the glaze ran onto the bottom of the bowl and messed up the base... BUT, I do love the color.

I HATE this mug. It looks way too patriotic to me, and since it shrunk so much, the handle barely fits a thumb.. And I hate the baby blue with the red. Oh well. I like the psychadelic feeling, just wish the colors were different. totally my fault.

I really like this mug below. I did only 3 colors. A black matte on the bottom, and a Red cranberry on the rim and inside. I splashed on a bit of crystal black on the outside which gives that blue crystal look in spots. I enjoy what the glaze did where the red overlapped the black matte.