Christmas Morning Ceramic Whistles

Many times potters compare an opening of the kiln to a Christmas morning -- so when a potter opens a kiln on Christmas morning, what then is the comparison? Christmas squared?

I had some pottery to bisque but I also had some whistles that I wanted to glaze in bright colors. I also did not want the opening of the whistle clay to 'move' or 'warp' during the firing. In the past, I've lost several whistles 'tones' by firing them too hot. The opening moved a bit and sadly, no more whistle.   Therefore, I decided to use lowfire glazes on these and help fill up the top shelf of the kiln.  They came through the firing with their whistle intact., ie., they sound great. 

Here they are:

Back in the Studio with cone 5 clay

I got on the wheel yesterday with one of my favorite clays from Texas Pottery, it's a cone 5 red stoneware clay that does vitrify without bloating, called Red Taos. It's yummy to work with, no grog, and reminds me of porcelain. It wedges nicely, throws nicely, and is very plastic.

I decided to take some Laguna Frost, cone 5 also, and make a slip to use for decorating. I got a hake brush and dipped it into the slip and let the wheel turn until each piece was fairly well coated. I cut each piece off the wheel, but touching was a no no until each piece became almost leather hard.


However, even after each piece was leather hard, and even though I tried my best not to smudge the slip, alas .... my fingermarks are everywhere. If you click on each of these photos, you can get a bigger image and you can clear see my fingermarks. This is what pottery does to me: it makes me crazy! All day long I'm going to be trying to figure out how to hold these in my hands long enough to add a handle or add more sprigs without ruining the lovely look of the slip.

I'm not a complete stranger to this technique. I did this same thing last year to this mug in this photo. I liked how it came out, but now that I want to alter it, I'm going to have to think about this some more if I want to make each piece completely unique. I'm going to take this mug, the glazed one, and add some laser decals to it and see how that shows up. Maybe I could play with these some and make some earthy "In The Garden" series from Red Taos instead of porcelain like I have been doing.

Just more things to think about. :) It's all good.

Two Dinnerware Patterns (2009-2010)

I suppose I should be mortified that it has been so long between postings. I'm not really. I've been busy in the studio, too busy to post anything or do anything but create, list items, and go to the post office.


I've been working mostly on pottery, my In The Garden series and Carved Porcelain series. The In The Garden series starts out with a porcelain mug or bowl or plate that has been bisque-fired (cone 04) and decorated with a black under-glaze to simulate plant life. Then it is dipped in a clear glaze and fired to maturity (cone 10). The next step is to affix a decal that I have drawn of a daisy character and put it back into the kiln at a lower temperature (cone 04) than the first firing. The last step is to affix colorful commercial decals which fire at a lower temperature (cone 015).

The cone 10 firing sometimes leaves beautiful red splotches on the porcelain in various places, which add to each piece's uniqueness.

This is not quite so labor and firing extensive. Basically I throw the piece, let it dry to leather-hard, cut out a foot (most times), and then I hand trim to as thin as possible on the bottom without cutting through the piece. It's very relaxing actually and I enjoy the rhythm. This is then bisque fired (cone 04), glazed and refired (cone 10)to bring out the texture.

I like each of these patterns for different reasons, one of which is to explore texture, color, and form. I'm going to continue making these patterns in my home studio with cone 5-6 porcelains and glazes. This frees me up to experiment and grow at school.

Etsy Supply Team Slideshow Promo

Stoneware & Porcelain Beads

These are the three clay bodies I commonly use when I make beads. In my last post I wrote about how I was finally mixing up some of my own glazes. Like most, I started with a simple clear glossy glaze. I did not use any underglazes or stains because I wanted to see how the glaze performed on each clay body.

I took some pics with my digital camera on its macro setting. There are some fine bubbles in here which are not visible to the naked eye, and only really show up on the porcelain (white) beads. Click the photo to see these beads bigger. I love the macro setting on my camera for that reason. It's like having a mini microscope. I'm not sure what the bubbles mean. It could mean that I could fire this glaze even hotter. It could mean that the beads need a longer firing time or a longer holding time or both. I don't know. I'll bring them to my professor tonight and she can enlighten me. What I'm really happiest about is that this glaze does fit these clay bodies, which all mature between cones 5 and 6. The white and the red mature at cone 5 and the light brown matures at cone 6. That is what I was hoping for the most! And yay!

Therefore, I think this glaze passes my test. It's a once fire clear glossy glaze that definitely fires to cone one and does not crackle or craze.

Glaze Making

Yesterday I bought the final items I needed in order to begin making many of my own glazes: a gram scale and some final common glaze chemicals. I decided that any glazes I made would not be toxic, so I have no toxic materials such as lead or barium.

For now my glazes will only be applied to my beads. In the kiln right now are beads which have applied to them a clear glaze that matures at cone 1. This is a once fire glaze that my professor at college let me copy out of one of her glaze recipe books. It's a simple recipe. The problem is that my glaze scale does not weight 'half' grams. I had to estimate. I'm considering taking it back but I'll see how this batch comes out first.

In the small kiln are three types of clay bodies which all mature at cone 5: a porcelain, and two stonewares, brown and red. These were all greenware beads, meaning they had not been bisque fired first. However, in the interest of experimentation, I also put in some beads of the same clay body that were bisque fired. I wanted to see what kind of difference there is, if any.

I have the kiln programed for a medium fire with a holding of 10 minutes after it reaches temperature. Because my kiln sits outside, weather is often a factor in how things turn out, so I have begun keeping a record like the one below in case I have a certain glaze that I would like to turn out similar:

Current weather and moon phase in the DFW area:

Temp: 74°
Dew Point: 58°
Humidity: 57%
Wind: South 21 mph
Visibility: 10.0 miles
Pressure: 30.01 in. -
Sky: Scattered Clouds
Moon: Waning (new moon was on the 18th)

Tomorrow about this time I will be opening the kiln to find out and will post the results here. Now I'm off to take photos of some more pottery.

Frenzied Listing

I realized a couple of weeks ago that I have not really photographed or listed pottery in quite a long time. My shelves are brimming full, especially after this last kiln opening at the college.

So I've been taking pictures every day for about a week. If I take, say, 10 items, maybe 2 come out good enough to list. It seems like noontime lighting is best. When it was raining all last week, it took a while to figure out how to get enough light without casting a shadow. About the time I got used to that setup, it stopped raining.

Taking pictures of pottery is vastly different than taking photos of beads. It requires much more setting up and taking down afterward. It also requires different programs in which to process the pictures. Usually I use Picasa to export and then Paint Shop Pro to adjust simple contrast. With pottery I use Picasa to export, straighten, auto color (which takes out too much 'yellow') and then I have to put those in a different program called "Gimp" in order to adjust the contrast because auto contrast in Picasa really takes that contrast to a level to where the dish does NOT resemble the real dish.

So that is the backdoor into how I take my photos. I use an old Nikon Coolpix 4500 to take my photos in case anyone was wondering. I still have a lot to learn about digital photography. Much of it is completely baffling to me. But I keep trying. Hopefully I will keep learning.

Trying to Decide

I'm trying to decide if I'm going to sell this one, keep this one, or use it for the Etsy Mud Team Mug Swap. It's such a hard decision!

I threw this on the wheel, it's Dave's Porcelain Laguna clay, and added a handpulled handle. I added the handle a bit too soon though and from the top view, it is not exactly round. Then I glazed black iron oxide dots on the outside and the inside and dipped in Malcom's Shino. It was reduction fired in a gas kiln to cone 10. Last I applied some of my hand drawn iron oxide laser decals and refired to cone 04 in my electric kiln.

It's a hard decision.

Kiln Opening

This I took out of the kiln this morning with some other pieces. I'll be uploading pics of those to flickr later today. I didn't set up the lights perfectly to take these photos but they will do for now.

Steve Branfman Workshop

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending a Steve Branfman workshop. His website can be found here: The Potter's Shop. A nice gallery of his work can be found here: here.

The lecture Thursday evening was informative and fascinating. Steve is an accomplished speaker and presenter. He likes to tell a story and listen to a story.

He shared his story about how he entered college with the idea of majoring in physical education only to change his major to the fine arts. He showed slides of his sculptures and pottery along side his growing family. My favorite shot was of his eldest son who was superimposed perfectly into a pot. It was a fluke of the camera but foretold in its own way the journey his son traversed into the world of clay.

It is no surprise then that his pottery is an extension of himself. Each piece showcases a bit of his personality.


This workshop was hands on. Friday, Steve demonstrated throwing. I usually throw with 1-3 lbs of clay but he had 12.5 lbs of clay on the wheel and challenged us to get out of our comfort zone. He also threw quite dry, which obviously would help in throwing large because the likely hood of the clay becoming soggy and falling is much less. I kept thinking, "I'm going to try that." He would first center using plenty of water, then after the mound was opened, he would dry off his sponge and his hands and proceed to dry throw. I could see how much more control he was able to give to each piece right away. He threw large jars so he pulled tall cylinders. After they were as tall as he wanted, he would texture, then make them round by using his hands, finishing the rounding with ribs. It was mesmerizing to watch.

Saturday we began the raku process in spite of the falling rain. The idea was to teach raku techniques glazed in non-traditional ways and because of the rain, we fired in non-traditional ways as well.

We were able to erect a tent outside over the gas kilns, but we also electric fired and ran the pots outside in stainless steel containers before beginning the post reduction part of the process. We all hummed a version of "Singing in the Rain" by substituting the word "Rakuing".

These three photos are the pots I walked away from the workshop with. I also was able to purchase a beautiful tea bowl which Steve made. It was an early birthday gift to myself and I will treasure it. It is similar to this one I found on his gallery: click here.

Four is Better than None

This is all I had time to do today. I'm just glad I had time at all to get in the studio.

September Weekend Shopping Extravaganza

I'm going to be participating in the September Weekend Shopping Extravaganza sponsored by Etsy Supply Street Team (TEAM ESST)! It will be held on Saturday September 5th - Sunday September 6th.

My promotion is:
Free Domestic US Shipping on orders of $20 or more ...
Free International Shipping on orders of $40 or more ...

I'll refund via paypal. Happy Shopping! Here's a link to my store: NKP BEADS.

Straight from the Kiln

These are some beads which I glazed the other day. On these skewers sit 104 beads, all between 11-13 mm. Yesterday I placed them onto rods and arranged each rod onto kiln stilts and began the firing process. It's a bit like a turkey dinner, minus the basting process.

For hours and hours I have to pretend there's nothing going on outside on the back porch. I try not to think about the clay becoming crystallized and (hopefully) beautiful in the fiery heat, that the glaze isn't dancing wildly on top the surface of each bead, deciding where and how to settle. In the meantime I tidy up the studio and the house in general, study my glaze notes (update them too!), sketch a bit, make supper, read a bit, play with the pups and ignore the kiln making its buzzy noises as it slowly continues to gather heat. It continues to fire long into the night.



By the time morning rolls around, I am impatient. I know they fired correctly or the kiln would have showed an error on the digital read out. I have to remind myself over and over not to open the kiln until it falls below 300 degrees. That's never until after noon. Finally, when the temperature is low enough, I lift the cover and take a peek. Did the beads topple? Did I hang them too close, fusing them together like tiny barbells? Did the colors completely burn out? So many ifs ... so many hours of waiting...

Perfect!

I leave the lid off for a few minutes so the kiln posts can slightly cool. I put on heavy gloves and remove the kiln posts and lift the rods out of the kiln.

Now I must wait until the beads are cool enough to take them off their rods. Sometimes this is an easy process. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes they don't come off their rods at all and it is a long an arduous battle in which I hold the rod with one hand and a pliers in the other. Today I lost 15 beads to the rods. These few beads simply would not budge and no amount of twisting, turning, and tugging worked.

However, for the ones that did slide off the rods (some easier than others), they will go into all sorts of beautiful jewelry. These are the ones that make it all worthwhile.

Triming and Photos

I have an awful lot of trimming to do today on the pots I threw yesterday. I had them under plastic last night in order that they might not dry out too much. This morning they were still quite moist, too wet to trim. While I'm waiting for them to dry enough to trim, I decided to play around with a photo idea.

Ruku

Today I will be throwing raku clay to get ready for an upcoming raku workshop at college. All participating ceramics students can attend for NO COST. Gotta love that. There is this one minor specification. If a ceramic student attends, that student must show up every day and stay the ENTIRE time. No problem. Will do!

This raku pot is by one of my favorite potters, Ron Hollister. Check out his website to see more of his wonderful pottery.

Back in School Jiggity Jig

I'm SO happy about being back in Ceramics's class. I have a list of projects in front of me and all of them are challenging. It won't be easy.

I'm looking forward to the assignment to make one form 10 different sizes. This will be a huge stretch for me. I practiced yesterday in my own studio and made three forms that were similar shape, but they were not as alike as they needed to be. I have a prototype that I'm trying to duplicate, the one in this photo. Maybe I'll make progress today.

Score!

I didn't take this picture but I 'lifted' off google images when I googled Bags of Clay. Notice that it is sitting in a trash can? Yesterday at Ceramic Class I found two bags of low fire clay in the trash. The reason? It had been bought for the children's class over the summer but the adults don't mix low fire with high fire clay in the regular fall/spring semesters. In order to keep this clay separate it was thrown out. I sometimes like to play with low fire clay so I snagged it (with full permission of course).

This semester is going to be a lot of fun and I hope to develop more and more as a potter. I went over the syllabus with the professor last night and we tailored it in order that I might push myself more as an artist. Hopefully we will all see some progress by the end of Christmas!

Porcelain Bowls and Cups

This weekend I took some cone 10 porcelain from its bag and decided to get back in practice on the wheel. I haven't been on the wheel since ceramics class ended in May. I realized that had been way too long!

The first hour or so was one disaster after another. I expected it and reacquainted myself with the soft buttery yummy of porcelain, enjoying how it felt in my hands and generally having a nice (if messy) time.

The next day was much better and I produced these in the photo. I wanted a bit of a handbuilt look to the machine wheel spun pots so I hand applied legs to a couple of these. I try to alter a bit of something on every pot. The mugs have hand pulled handles, and on on one of the mugs I decided to apply some stamps and mild carvings.

Taking the Beads off the Rods

A photo is worth what they say? 1000 words? Therefore I should not elaborate too much on what happened as I was taking the rods out of the kiln ... but I will. After all, this blog documents the successes and the failures of this particular potter. This is what happened: The rods began crumbling. At the exact moment when the rods began crumbling I realized I should have switched out these beads onto new rods for the last repeat firing. I was certain they would make it through this final firing. I was wrong. (insert Homer Simpson's DOH right here).

Here are the results. The lower, most southern bowl, hold the beads which came off the rods with no debris in their holes. The top, most northern bowl, hold the beads which have part of the rod stuck in them forever. They are destined for the trash. In case you are wondering the bead whistle did not end up making noise plus it had somewhat of a severe rod problem as well. Bummer.

Last night my husband and I went out for Chinese. I didn't much like my 'fortune' cookie. I'm not superstitious and usually these sayings are just fun ... like The best way to have a friend is to be a friend and The person who takes the last eggroll is the least hungry but the one I got last night was a definite foreshadowing of this morning. The mother of all success is failure. Spooky!

Firing the Bead Kiln

I suppose I should have titled this "REfiring The Bead Kiln" ... but no matter....


The interior size of my bead kiln is 8"x8"x 6¾". I use 7" kiln posts to rest the bead rods upon. I also use them as weights on top of the rods. This helps to keep the rods from sagging under the weight of the beads.

The first layer consists of three beads. If I am using a larger bead, such as a 20-22 mm,I will only use one bead per rod.

The next step is to place a kiln post on top of the rods. This holds them in place and keeps the thin rod from sagging. The thick ones sag too. More? Less? Exactly the same.

When I stack the kiln posts, I offset them slightly. If they are going to topple (and they often will topple over any firings above 1800 degrees), I want them to topple outwards and not inwards. If they topple inwards I have a lot of beads which end up melting together. That's a big firing waste.

The second layer of rods hold 4 beads. Again, I place the kiln posts on top, slightly offsetting them. On the third (and final) layer, I use 5 or 6 beads, depending on their size. Again, on this top layer I finish by topping the rods with kiln posts.

I put the lid on top and look around to make sure I haven't left something flammable near the kiln. I set the firing rate and then it slowly fires for the next 8-12 hours.



Morning time comes and it is 11:30 am before the kiln cools enough to open. I usually wait until it is under 300 degrees. This was 235 degrees when I removed the lid.

Viola! Here they are fired. Notice that the kiln posts did topple ... however they toppled outward (as planned). It looks like a perfect firing. I'm happy with the way the glaze on the alphabet beads performed.




I have a new type of bead in this batch. It is an egg (or teardrop shape) bead, but I textured these. Also, in the bottom is a bead whistle. In the last (failed) firing the glaze didn't melt properly and it didn't make any sound at all when I tested it. I'm hoping that it will still whistle. Sometimes they sound great going in and terrible coming out. I don't sell the ones that don't work.

Now all that remains is to allow these to finish cooling so that I can remove these off their rods, photograph them, and hopefully they will all sell very soon so I can make more.

Firing Perils

As it happens, the bead kiln underfired. I got a FTH error (failed to heat) error about 5-6 hours into the firing so it fired to around cone 08. I know it did not reach cone 06 or the glaze would have looked melted a bit more.

As it happens, I have an extra bead kiln. I keep it for exactly this reason. I do not have two outlets outside therefore I cannot run two kilns at once. I took it out of its storage container and set it up, put the other one into the storage container and this weekend my husband will help me figure out why it is not working. He's good at that sort of thing. If that doesn't work I'll take it to Alan over at Texas Pottery and Clay Company. He has been such a help to me in every aspect of clay and firings. Not only that, but his stoneware clay is the yummiest around.

Yes. Yummy.

And tomorrow, should there be no more kiln mishaps, I'll finish the second part of the previous firing blog article. The rest of the day will be spent straightening up my studio. I realized that its become more of a storage room than a studio when I went in there to grab the extra kiln out of its box. I've been making beads and whistles in the living room all summer. It's easy to keep the dust down when one is working on a small scale. However, I did end up getting into another ceramics class this fall and I have to get everything together for class which starts on Monday.

Getting Ready for a Bead Firing

Yesterday I glazed these and this is what they look like while they are drying. Before they are completely dried, I take them off. If I wait too long, the glaze dries too much and falls off when I remove them from the skewer.

All these beads have three coats of glaze. The first two coats are a pink underglaze. Most of this color will fire out in the 2124 degree firing. On top of the pink underglaze is a clear gloss glaze. Each skewer has to be rinsed off afterward and set to dry.

On my list of things to do today was to sort through these, throw out the ones which are becoming brittle and sort them into two sizes. I am thinking it is time to go back to the welding store and buy more rods. Most of these have just about had it





Here are some of the beads on their rods. I have three colors going into this batch of beads: pinks, light purples, and cobalt blues. Most of the alphabet beads which I talked about in an earlier blog article are in this batch. However, they did not all fit. They have been set aside and will make it into the next firing.

The bead kiln sits outside in my ventilated laundry room on top of a dryer. Tomorrow I will go into more detail about how they are loaded and have photos of what each layer looks like. I'll also be able to show how this batch turns out. If I loaded it correctly the kiln posts will not topple. If I loaded it correctly, no beads will melt together. If If If ... it's always about the 'if'.

Ceramic Nuggets Rock

Today I'm going to be forming 'nuggets'. I'm planning on using a variety of clays, porcelain as well as earthenware. These are rather fun to make. Each one is different. I have a tutorial on how I make these on my website. Here's the link if you are interested in the process. This is a photo of some that I made a while ago. I only have a few more of this batch. The problem is that I have many containers of beads and they are somewhat spread out. Last week I gathered all the containers and tried to consolidate them. I made good progress but I have a lot more to sort through. Expect some of these 'old timers' to make it into my etsy bead store very soon.

Clay Whistles

This weekend I've been making these clay whistles. I have some that are smaller than others which make for a wide variety of sounds. These are larger than the bead whistles and so they are not as shrill. The bead whistles are usually 20 mm (about 3/4") and the smallest one here is 50 mm (2").

Vases

I was able to sign into a ceramics class this semester after all and so last night I pulled out the cone 10 clay (b-mix) and decided to make some flower vases. I can bisque these at home and bring them into the classroom to experiment on some glaze/stain combinations.




This is a bowl I got at the Asian store a while back. These are great to lay clay inside and make pretty patterns. After the inside is covered with clay, I smooth it out and let it sit overnight. It shrinks and comes out easily by morning.

The next step is to roll out a bottom, attach it to the 'top' of the bowl and decide if I want it footed or flat. I decided one of each.




The last step is to cut out a hole from the top and smooth it. After it is bisque fired, my plan is to rub a mason stain into the cracks to bring out the pattern, then refire it in a gas kiln.

More Photos

I took some of my creations outside this morning and photographed them. I really do like how the sunlight is working in this particular place on my front porch. I know that depending on time of year, the lighting will be different. It will be different on cloudy days and on sunny days. But for now this is nice.

Like most people who love beads, I have a lot of them, gemstones, glass, polymer, even paper. I love silver and plastic (ahem ... resin). Lucite is also fabulous. Wooden beads are lightweight and versatile. I have some fabric beads in my collection as well as some felted beads. I love them all!

Occasionally I have that urge to combine my ceramic beads with all sorts of other beads without actually making anything. I can combine a few colors and textures and showcase what has come out of my kiln in an (hopefully) interesting manner. Hence these beadstrands.

Playing with Photos

I'm trying to revamp my photos a bit. I'm a bit bored with the white paper background. So I thought I'd go outside and shoot. Altogether, I took 50 photos and I am so glad the cost of digital photos is nil. This first shot is on the white paper, in the shade. It is slightly overcast today. I don't know why the paper shines through blue. The beads also look a bit darker in color value than they actually are.









This shot is on some tan cardstock. I put these photos in Picasa and only cropped them. I didn't even press the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button.










This last shot is my cement front porch. I think I like the look of this the best.

More Decals and Textures

I got to thinking about textures and how to combine them with decals. This is what I thought to do. I'll apply a decal to the smooth part and yet still have the happy fun of having a texture. It's always a difficult decision when forming a bead ... do I go for a glaze combination or do I find a way to drape the glaze over a texture and see if it pools nicely ... and lately I've been working on these decals and really missing the textures. I decided to experiment with all of them at once.

Combining Commerical and Handmade Decals on the Beads

I am putting some commercial decals on the backside of some of the beads I have applied the handdrawn character daisies. I thought it might be fun to add a spot of bright color to each bead. This is not nearly enough for a load. I will set these aside and add to it. When I have enough for a full load, I will fire these. The commercial decals fire several hundred degrees less than the handmade decals. However, like the iron oxide laser decals, they do slip underneath the glaze and are permanently affixed.

First Peek - Decal Daisy Handmade Ceramic Beads

These are only three of the hand drawn daisy decals that have been fired onto a porcelain bead. The first one is called "Loves Me ... Loves Me Not", the second I call, "The Star of the Show" and the third, "Mother and Child".

This is the first batch where I was satisfied with how the hand drawn laser decals fired. I have some other fun daisies. I have a 'Daisy in Waiting' (she looks pregnant).

I started out painting daisies in watercolor and enjoyed the personification process. This same idea has filtrated into my bead designs. I look forward to continuing to draw more of these and designing with them.

I also did a couple of pendants but I'm going to apply some commercial decals to the back of those and refire.

Procrastination ....

Last year I took Ceramics I and II at the local junior college. I found out that Ceramics II can be repeated as many times as I want to take it. I had planned on taking it again because it is a ton of fun. I have access to a wonderful gas kiln and the other potters who retake it year after year are incredibly wonderful people.

My desire is to move onto a state college and get a bachelors in Fine Arts, but I'm waiting until at least one of my college age children graduates. Therefore, Junior College is much more affordable at this point. However, I procrastinated and all the classes filled up. I am going to hope someone drops out at this point. However, I am probably not going to be able to take it. This has renewed my desire to finish converting an electric kiln into a gas kiln. I removed all the hardware and elements over the summer. I have to still cut holes in it and all the rest that goes into all that.

The mugs in this photo were some I had made from slabs in Ceramics I. The assignment was to make 6 in the same style.