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!