Grumpy Boy

Stoneware with paper fibre. Cobalt oxide painted on then sponged off. Jill's white on top.

Merry Christmas!

Thank you Madeleine!

whale plate

shiny blue over gill's white, plus a little wax resist

Bottle?

Black clay with porcelain mixed in. Scraped to make a rough surface. Glazed in shiny blue transparent with the top dipped in creamy titanium. A line of creamy titanium trailed round the body. Not really that keen on the texture, the form or the colour!

African Inspired Ceramics

I created these two masks in honour of Black History Month during October 2013. I used a mixture of stoneware and terracotta clay to create contrasts. I glazed them both with honey.

Remembering My Roots, Abigail Black

This is a 'ornament' for my mother. It will be displayed in our new home.
It is glazed with buttery cream and the lettering is a mixture of copper and manganese which sometimes comes out as gold. However, on this piece, it looks more African print-like!

Giant clam - finished

Made of black clay with porcelain inlaid. Outside left naked. Edges glazed in transparent. Inside was honey with turquoise transparent - makes a glassy glaze. 

A menagerie of beasts

Each creature was made in five minutes by three learners: one making a head, one a body and one a combination of legs/wings/feet/claws etc. Each group comprised one learner new this term, one who joined the class fairly recently and one who has been attending for longer. Come Halloween look out for these creatures roaming the area. Be afraid, be very afraid...

 

Beast 2

Beast 3

Beast 4

Beast 5

Beast 6

Three mugs

Stoneware, thrown, glazed with tin white earthenware inside and johns green outside. 

I glazed the inside first , biscuit fired it a second time , and then glazed the outsides.

Giant clam

And not a big vjj as everyone keeps insinuating

This is coiled out if smooth black clay. Edges worked with the fingers to pull them out and ruffle them. Used a wooden tool to gouge lines into the leather-hard surface. Filled these holes with a thick slip made from porcelain which was dabbed on and scrapped back once it had dried. 

Beginning of new term

Experimental glaze - rough purple under transparent turquoise. Should have been more joined. Clay body over fired so it's very dark and not as contrasting as it might have been. Inside tin white with a drip of turquoise came out better. 

End of term but not quite finished

Raku remains

Raku day

Inderwick Clay Jamon pot

This was bright orange after biscuit and upright. Somehow in the glaze firing it melted off to the side and stuck to the pot next door. Glazed with rough purple and then alkaline transparent green. It no longer stands up unaided. 

Drop pots

Testers only - not attractive but an idea. Pinch pots with handles dropped on the floor on their heads. Glazed differently inside than out. Might need more development!!

Raku bottle

I like this one much better - white crackle glaze, I think. This is its good side, the other side the glaze is much darker and greyish rather than white. 

Surprised that it has both black and brown crackle lines, which you can see if you look closely.

YAOP

Yet another olive pot - I have a surplus of medium-sized bowls that you could put olives in, and no other real use. Oh well.

Thrown in crank, faceted, thrown out some more, glazed with raku turquoise glaze. I think the glaze looks a bit anaemic and unattractive, and the pot isn't a nice shape either.

My first teapot

Actually that's not true, I made a teapot when I was a child but it leaked and we ended up throwing it away. This one, surprisingly, is just big enough for one mug - and about 1 1/2 of these small moomin cups (pictured alongside the teapot). The main pot and the spout were thrown, but I forgot to throw the lid so I hand built it. 

To get the pattern i scored the grooves when it was still on the wheel, then continued the pattern by hand across the rest of it once all the bits of the teapot had been joined together. I then painted thin horizontal stripes with black slip. Before I glazed it, I waxed inside the grooves and waxed four vertical lines. I can't remember exactly which glaze I used but it was an edible one that was as close to Egyptian blue as I could get. I then tried to make more lines using manganese and copper oxide. This didn't really work very well because of two things (I think): the copper oxide bled quite a lot into the glaze, which meant i didn't achieve the definition I wanted; and the glaze was too thick in places, which meant the black lines dripped, giving it a bit of an untidy finish. 

The lid doesn't fit as snugly as i'd like and it's a lot smaller than i was aiming for. There are also issues with pouring because the spout is slightly higher than the rim, so it's more of a display teapot than a functional one. However, despite all this, I'm dead pleased with my first attempt and, once my cast is off, I'll have a go at making a bigger, better, tidier teapot. Watch this space!!

Burnished bottles

Thrown crank, dipped in blue slip then burnished. This is what they look like before biscuit firing.

How busy is this blog?

Trend over time.

Mug in local clay

Local (Inderwick Road) clay, thrown, glazed in honey, and fired to standard earthenware temperature. It is tricky to glaze it, as the clay is mostly vitrified after biscuit firing, and so the glaze doesn't stick well. The clay is also not very pure, and little lumps of calcium carbonate give rise to lime pops (my favourite new phrase): areas of bloating where the lime evolves CO2 during the firing. You can see some small lime pops on the inside of the mug.

Fran's crystalline glaze on teacup

Fran's teacup, coiled in grogged porcelain. Manganese and cobalt give the colours

Stubby vase

Porcelain off cuts mixed with paper fibre. Kind of ok on the top, but an ugly bottom.

Tray and dishes

Small porcelain dishes, thrown and glazed with transparent stoneware glaze. Bamboo tray from Stockholm Design Centre (bought from Skandium). 

Design fault

For all you handle makers I wanted to post a picture of this cup with a handle that looks put on upside down. It also makes the cup lean hotly against your hand.

Jamon influenced

Stoneware hand-built influence from jamon flame pots. Glazed in alkaline green.

5 jars

Tiny jars made out of stoneware, glazed inside until it drizzled out with Egyptian. Dots of mixed oxides - copper oxide and manganese dioxide.

Andrew's bowl

the biggest bowl I ever made!

pinch pot candle lantern

Pocket

Stoneware body glazed with earthenware glazes - tin white, oxides painted on (rutile, gold and crocus martis), dipped quickly in honey afterwards. Pretty ugly result.