lit bulbs

Slip cast bulbs illuminated with small LED's, photographed on darkroom floor. Text covered porcelain surprisingly coloured compared to the pure, icy white of the bone china. Reached a bit of a pause with the project and now thinking how to continue, possibly exploring the lighting and projection route.

porcelain firing fri nov 25th

...continuing the bulb theme for college project, experimental casting in porcelain with sgrafitto text. I had hoped for more deformation - guess cast too thick. It does show up light nicely with a little LED placed inside.

... and exploring lighting further with slip-cast jars lit with tea-lights ...

Testing out sprigging, stamping and sgrafitto. None entirely successful but I like the sgrafitto look best so far. The sprig does not work here but still has potential and silhouettes well - its a bit cartoonish for this project. The stamping is a bit subtle but works ok when there is quite a lot of text. Gets lost on single names.

earthenware firing 24 nov

A visiting friends child (8yrs) had a play with clay over the summer and made some pots. Pretty good for a first timer I thought. I eventually got round to glazing them for him last week. The colours are glaze/body stains dissolved in underglaze medium and painted on. Seriously strong colour. I hope they survive the postage trip to France..

Sgrafitto bulbs glazed with a thick clear glaze. Surprisingly the glaze covers up all of the writing texture making a glassy smooth surface. This is unexpected but fits well with their origins as lightbulbs. Another unexpected outcome is that the text has become much more legible. When un-glazed I liked that the text was virtually unreadable, now when looked at closely it looks more like bad handwriting than random pattern. I left the spare unglazed to emphasise it and I like the contrast here between glossy and matt.

First test cast of kilner jars. Being in earthenware they are thick and not at all translucent but it was a good test and they have cast well (the orange glow on the left is from a candle, hopefully I will be able to compare this to a porcelain cast if todays porcelain firing works). The text on the sides does not show up in the photo but its there. It might be sharper if unglazed?

sgrafitto

Continuing an obsession with common names of moths... sgrafitto on slip cast light bulb. 

UK Moths have such intriguing common names - the chamomile shark always does my head in, how did a moth get a name like that?

casting bulbs

Slip cast lightbulbs drying on rack... the more I research with this project the more I change direction..

... another experiment, a slip cast kilner jar. Mould making is addictive.

prints

Dry point experiments, photographed and then cleaned up in gimp (probably an anathema to printmakers...). The very feathery / sooty dry point line looks good and appropriate on moths. These could potentially be used as decals on fired ceramics?

A cyanotype of a lightbub. Dry points of lightbulbs still in the print room, will be good to compare them side by side.

object as metaphor

start of a new project..

porcelain test firing

After a few hitches getting kiln to work (voltage problems in garden shed..) I have managed to do a test firing of slip-cast porcelain.

Trying out a small selection of glazes on small forms. Its the first time I have made glazes up from scratch rather than buying in ready made mixes. A lot more experimentation needed but some good results too. The celadon-like green works well. The cobolt glaze is interestingly matt but not sure its the look I am after. The manganese rim ran a bit but next time I will be braver and pile it on so it really runs.

new kiln

At last I have a new kiln and can restart working with ceramics..