Another evening in the studio..

Beginning to forget what a normal evening at home is like, oh well it is all enjoyable.  I put a glaze firing on last night and , while the kiln was still to hot to unpack this evening, I did take a quick peek and all looks good.  

I spent this evening finishing decorating and glazing the final pieces ready for the last firing for the week.  However, would you believe I ran out of glaze before I could finish my 3 bird chatter pictures.  See below.  Should look fab when they are glazed.

Here is are the pieces ready for firing when kiln is free tomorrow.  

I am almost home so will sign off now.  Stay tuned for pictures from the kiln firing.  

Studio time

OoBeen in the studio getting things finished for the open house.  Finished drawing into my new mugs yesterday and they just need to dry before I first fire them.  I am thinking about changing the handle on further mugs back to the original round handle I used to make, but for the moment am happy with the outcome of these.  

Shown above are some sugar pots, and mugs, large and small.

I have almost finished glazing my bird chatter ready for their firing to 1150oC. I will put these on tomorrow evening.  Right now though I am on the bus home and very weary.  Look forward to having some nosh and a cuppa a while putting my feet up and watching game of thrones.

At university tomorrow, which will likely be a busy day as we have an exam board on Wednesday to prepare for.  However I will try and get to the studio at lunch, but if not will put kiln on in the evening.  

Kiln emptying day.

Here are images from my firing on Friday.  I have painted them and they are now ready to glaze and go back in.

Here I am with my super duper dust mask.

And finally here are some mugs I have thrown this evening, some small, some large.  I will put the handles on tomorrow, if they are dry enough to handle.

Wild pottery day 2

Well where do I start, I learnt so much on the course, it will be difficult to recap on all of it.

Firstly, I am pleased to say that my pieces I made yesterday survived the drying process and we went on to make the fire to 'cook' these in the open fire.  Amazing experiencing watching the fire take hold and burn down.  Towards the end of the firing while the pots where still hot we put a milk glaze on them.  Yes that is pretty much as simple as it sounds, poring milk onto and into the pots.  This is an ancient technique of making them less porous.  Of course, in today health and safety standards they do not pass muster for liquid but can be used for dry foods, such as nuts.

The second exciting thing of the day was making fire.   We did a one match challenge first where we had one match, one sheet of newspaper and a stash of  dry wood we collected our selves.  I have to say I failed on this challenge.  I did not collect enough very fine twigs or I did not stack it correctly as while newspaper had some embers it but did not light the wood.  

Things learnt.

Two useful shapes to help light a fire.

The raft,  using dry wood to create a raft for the fire to sit on.  This takes it away from a damp surface and gives it a dry stable surface.

the figure A.  Place the V of the A shape with the open end facing the wind.  Place a piece of wood to make the line and use this to stack small twigs in the middle.  At the bottom of the place the newspaper.  The wind blows into the open A tacking the embers from the newspaper and lighting the twigs

Last but not least the newspaper itself should not just be rolled up into balls but twisted into loosely curled rope to create as much air as possible so it catches well.

From using matches we went to on to learn about more traditional means of lighting a fire using Flint and carbon rich striking tools.

For the ember we used a choice of carbon cloth, dried fungus (bracket fungus and king Alfred cake) this could also be or made into charcoal.

Make nest using nesting type of dried climbing plant or grass,  and place Sycamore bark, fine seed head material, clematis tendrils and dry rotten wood into the nest.  Place the charcoal ember and fold it all into itself.  Allow to settle then use the length of the arm to sway your arm back and forth to create air flow.  When smoking quite well hold up and blow into the nest and when it catches quickly place in your spot and add you collected fuel,  going from small, medium to large until a good fire is established.

It has been a fantastic course and a great group of people.  I highly recommend it to anyone.  Detail can be found at :  http://www.nativehands.co.uk/

To sign off here are images of the pots I made.

Wild pottery

Well what a day.  Spent the day at Dernwood make pots from clay dug up this morning.  Spectacular setting, weather superb and loved the pure minimalist nature of making a pot using ones hands alone. Not a throwing wheel in site.

The day started with digging up clay in the woods then taking a silent walk through the woods to the camp area.  Here we watched ruby light the fire, using traditional fire lighting skills.  We looked at some designs of previous pots made, before going on to making our grog for adding to the clay.  Grog is used to help prevent thermal shock as the clay is fired quickly in an open fire.  

Lunch time where we ate and shared some food and discussed the dawning of civilisation, cave paintings, anthropology and more.  I took a stroll through these beautiful woods and made a mental note of the trees, the  light and feeling to try and capture in a drawing later on.  Here is the result.

I over worked it and it has come out too dark, but hey I haven't done a drawing from memory before.

The afternoon led to finishing the prep of the clay and making sure the spread of clay and grog was even.  And the making began.  A globe pot, a pinch pot and a oil lamp later and it was time to leave.

It is difficult clay to work with as it cracks a lot so there needs to be a level of spontaneity to each piece, over working makes the clay dry out and crack.  We shall see how well I have done tomorrow as the test of the fire will leave no weakness in unexposed.

Here are our finished pieces and roll on tomorrow.

Sun trap on the beach

II am sitting down beside the pier in a magnificent wind and sun trap.  The tide is quite far out and it is very calm.  There are even seagulls on a sand bank the tide is so far out.  I cannot believe it only April.  

I am trying to muster the energy to drag myself away from this relaxing position to go into the studio and see how well the kiln firing went that I put on this morning.  A varity of plates, beakers, tiles and some more dog key charms, all waiting to be glazed now for the open house in May.  Will post some images later, but to keep your visual stimuli interested here is a sketch from current position.  

Some brave souls have just gone into the sea,  partially clothed, the tide is so low that they sea is only a knee level about 10 meters out.   Of course it has not stopped the frompusing each other into the sea and getting totally soaked.

As for me I am very happy just sitting observing, sketching and just taking it easy.  5 more minutes and then I must be off.  Well okay perhaps 10....,