New photos

I set my good friend Simon a mission to take some shots of my work for my assessment and these pictures are the results of his hard work. I am especially pleased with the close up shots of the large bowl. They look like moon craters ~ I guess this links to the use of volcanic glazes without actually using them!

http://scienceprep.org/moon.htm

Black Chunky Bowl

These pieces just hot out of the kiln are the latest of my experiments. 

Made with a black chunky clay, bisque fired and then glazed with a white tin glaze (Yo Thom) and fired to 1250 in an electric kiln

I am extremely pleased with the results, I think it is one of the best pieces I have produced so far.

The glaze works well with the chunky black clay with the different thicknesses of the glaze giving a wide range of colours and shades.

Suggested selling price £195 large bowl

Small pots £22 

Technical notes: Bisque firing  50/600 100/1000

                         Glaze firing   100/600  150/1250  20min soak

Glaze (Yo Thom): 

Potash Feldspar     49.5

China Clay             24.7

Dolomite                21.7

Tin Oxide                3

Bone Ash               2.1

Whiting                  2.1

                

pottery throwing demo on a car tire~by Hillar Bergman

Cool idea!

Volcanic Glaze (Raku)

These are the same pots as the previous post. I wasn't happy with the flatness of the colour so i decided to try them out in the last Raku firing that I did. I'm really pleased with the results, it has given them much more depth of colour. They were fired to about 950 and then reduced in sawdust. Because of the previous stoneware firing (1250) the clay was less porous where there was no glaze and has given them a fantastic metallic look (on the base). I had a comment that they looked like something from middle earth (Lord of the rings). A good result. I hope I can transfer this test into my current work somehow

Volcanic Glaze

Cobalt

Red Copper

Manganese, Iron & Cobalt

Black Copper

These are some Volcanic glaze tests. They didn't look as exciting as I was expecting - the colours are kind of flat in appearance and not as volcanic as I had hoped for. I need to apply the glaze thicker.

Work in Progress - February(2)

I love the look of these wet pots but they were absolutely horrible to throw! I have no nails left and my hands are raw! These were made from chunky black clay (black when fired)   I've decided to make a slip from this and try painting it onto a smoother clay - maybe a stoneware which is a lot nicer to throw and a quarter of the price!

This is the press mould bowl with the thrown pots joined on. they were slightly too dry when I got to join them so are not quite so 'squashed' as I would have liked. I carved the rim of the big dish back with a surform blade when it was quite dry and it has given it a lovely worn rounded edge 

Work in Progress - February

These pieces were made form Hollyford Clay that I was given by Doug Fitch.

The large piece is made form the bowl mould I have made, I'm intending to use the small pieces for glaze tests