firing results 3

Tile inspired large stencil beakers. Much more successful that my previous attempt;

A nice, simple, clean design. The surface is a sponged on not-quite-white slip which makes an interesting and subtle texture to contrast with the pure white and smooth inner. The pattern in slightly raised from layers of black slip so again adding a subtle texture.

Not sure what, if anything to do with these next. Think I will have to live with them for a bit, see what they are like to drink out of, put flowers in, store paperclips in etc.

tile beakers

Its pouring with rain today and even at mid day its so dark that we need the lights on. A good day to labour over some more intricate paper-cuts to make some revised Portuguese tile inspired beakers.

I was not keen on my previous results. The colour was bad and I did not like the design. This time I have sponged the background of the beakers with an off-white slip. This will hopefully make the end result look less stark. I felt the shapes were too big for the size of beaker and so have reduced these (thanks to photocopier reduce button..). And there was just too much pattern last time too. Less is always more... Oh and I have abandoned attempt to use colour and am sticking with my favourite shades of black, gray and white;

Fingers crossed these turn out better than the last ones...

kiln unloading; wire & paper

I did a biscuit and glaze firing over the last couple of days, firing the first few bits of my course related pieces. Being a bit experimental, some have come off well and others not worked. But I am excited by the process and it is throwing up new ideas.

1. wire

 

The basic wire sgrafito looks ok but a bit basic. The more abstract, contour based sgrafito however looks good and is an idea which could be taken further. I think a set with turquoise inner and this decoration outside would look great.

2. paper-cut

Less successful. The painted on cobolt solution looks scruffy and the sponged on slip is ok but too dark and the shapes too large for the pot. The dark colour against a white background is too stark for me too.

I do have ideas to take this forward though and am sketching more designs from a Portuguese tile source book. Rather than decorating the whole pot I am looking at doing a narrow vertical band, maybe two shapes wide, but with much smaller shapes than above. And maybe sponging a background colour to give texture and match the patterns tone more rather than stark white.

paper-cuts

First week of college, we are making paper-cuts. A great first project as it translates so easily into ceramics - Silhouettes, slip-resist, stencils etc

The paper cut we made was based on an electrical tape drawing we did as a group exercise;

This picture was taken 24 hours after the tape was put up - It obviously did not stick very well but I kind of like its draping, collapsing quality.

 

The paper-cut version of the same landscape. The black paper would make a good slip-resist barrier/stencil. Tying this in to my Portuguese obsession, I am making some geometric paper-cuts loosely based on azulejos, using the paper-cut as a stencil to apply coloured slip to white slip-cast beakers.

Problem - sticking the paper-cut to the pot sufficiently well so that when applying colour, it does not leak under the paper...

First attempt; I gave up (ha ha, staying power!) and drew with pencil through the paper-cut then hand painted colour (weak cobolt oxide solution) into the pencil areas after removing the paper-cut. Worked ok but very time consuming and the painted on look not usually my thing.

Second attempt; sticking the paper-cut to the pot with weak glue before sponging coloured slip on. This worked ok, some leaking under the paper but not too much (easy to clean off with a craft knife). Paper-cut still useable for another pot so will try more with this method..

I think that this is an idea that could run and run. I have made up a batch of beakers and now just need to cut some templates and study some portuguese tiles...