Slip Goo

I had this idea to cover the surface of this very big mug with white porcelain slip ...then I could use underglazes and get all painterly artistic about the decorating aspect of it all.  Yeah, good idea!  Except the slip was quite gooey and the brush wasn't really working.  I did the best I could. I went back and reshaped it a bit. It's drying now.  I'll trim and attach a handle later.


--UPDATE--
I couldn't help but think this would be a lovely teapot, so that's what I did. I ended up forming it into a teapot.

Math and Custom Orders

I say all the time, "NO ... I don't do custom orders...."  .... that is because, well, I don't work well under stress.  That's just how I am.

However, when I have conversations that go something like this:

Can you make (fill in the blank) and take as much time as you need ......

OR

I want this to do that, and I don't care what it looks like afterward, you decide.

OK  ...yeah, that I can do ....

I got a request to make some 24 ounce chowder mugs and in the process of doing those, got another request for a 24 ounce mug .... and the above requests were met with a lot of smiles on my part.

I started immediately and have some decent size mugs drying on the shelf, right now! But I really don't know how much they are going to hold so I got to wondering and thought surely there are some online calculators that can determine volume for me and yay, there were. 

First I had to find a calculator to figure out how much something vertical would hold:

http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/construction/tank.php

And because it was a large volume calculator, I had to convert the gallons to ounces. I typed Gallons to Ounces into google and a calculator popped up.

SO ...now I know in order for a mug to hold 24 ounces, it should have a finished height and width of 5 inches high and 3.5 inches wide, and that is being filled 1/2 inch to the top. 

Therefore, I need to throw to 6 inches high and 4 inches wide ...that should do it!

However, the mug in the photo above is not straight up and down.  When it is dry, when it is glazed, when it has shrunk as much as it will shrunk, it will be about 3.25" on the bottom, 5.5" at its widest and 4.5" across the top.  It will be about 3.5" tall.  

But the unfortunate thing about this volume calculator is that it does not take into account the curves involved!  Oh the curves!  The next best thing is to go to Etsy and search for 24 ounce mugs, then see which shapes most likely match mine and see what those measured.

And in less time than it takes me to sneeze (practically) I find that a finished height of 3.25" and 5" wide at the top will do the job nicely. 

I make things really hard on myself at times.  So the question: will this mug on top hold 24 ounces? I think it will.