A really useless jug!

For some random reason I decided to make a useless jug.  

I wanted it to be a challenge to pick up due to a strangely shaped handle, and just in case someone fancied using it as a jug or a vase, I put holes all the way down the back to make it totally leak if water was added.

Why?  No idea.  Just a strange idea.

Anyway… I hand build it using rolled out slabs of clay.

I then painted it in a few coats of different coloured slips.

Can’t even remember what colours I used as I was just grabbing anything from the cupboard, so it will be a nice (or not) surprise when it comes out of the kiln.

I decided to do some random designs on it too with my Sgraffito carving tool.  I marked off some sections to begin…

… then lightly marked a pattern so I could go back and carve it properly once done.

Quite pleased with the outcome so far, it will look a little different once glazed and fired.

Making coloured slips for clay

 Today I spent most of the day making loads of coloured slips, for my Sgraffito work.

I had 7 different coloured stains, which I bought from Bath Potters.

I bought…

Azure / Black / Emerald / Coral / Violet / Honey / Sepia.

The first thing to do was to get my equipment together.  I needed a clean bucket, water jug, 120 gauge sieve, a bowl and a stick mixer.   You can use a wooden spoon but it’s a bit quicker with a mixer.

 

I weighed out 200g of ball clay powder, 200g of china clay powder, 20g of stain and roughly a litre of water.

I put all the powders (whilst wearing a mask of course) and the water into a large clean bucket.

Then I blitzed it with my stick blender until it was nice and smooth.

Once that was done it was time to run the coloured slip through a 120 gauge sieve, and into a clean bowl, to make sure there was absolutely no lumps left.

Lovely and smooth.  Ready for painting onto leather hard clay.

I then poured it into a lidded container and labelled it.   As slips can look a bit different to the powder colour once mixed.

Then I had to thoroughly clean every piece of equipment properly so not to cross contaminate the next mix.

Can’t wait to try these out now.

Carving little dishes

 I was working towards making a tea set in a Moroccan style with little lemon dishes and a dish for a sugar cone.

The design I wanted to use was the one from the Ben Yusuf Madrasa  (A place of study) in Marrakesh.

I followed the instructions from Eric Broug’s book on Islamic Geometric Patterns and drew the design using a pair of compasses and a ruler.

I had previously made the little bowls and they had been dried to a leather hard state (not fired) and then coated with three coats of yellow coloured slip. 

(The colour comes out when the firing process is finished.)

I printed out the pattern in various different sizes and placed it into the prepared dish.  I then pin pricked the lines.

I then went in with my new Xiem carving tools and followed the lines to carve out the pattern.

It took a while, but it is quite a mindful and therapeutic process… so you get lost in it a little.

Using different parts of the design I made each one a little different.

Can’t wait to see these once they’ve been fired and glazed and refired.

Sgraffito dish - glazed

 A few weeks ago I took part in this collaboration - it was part of a tutorial to learn Sgrafitto.

I designed the middle part of the pattern using Sacred Geometry, then I carved it into the clay.

Other decoration was added by other students and some mark making too.

So, I was lucky enough to be allowed to keep it, as long as I glazed it and fired it – well, I was more than happy to do that!

I used a clear earthenware glaze, which was a little disconcerting as it turned the whole thing white!

Then off to the kiln it went to be fired at 1100 degrees.

The finished piece is fabulous!  I love the depth of colour that the stained slip gives, much better than experimenting with glazes I think.

I really enjoy this process and can see me taking it a lot further.

Geometric Sgraffito

 Having really enjoyed the process of Sgraffito, I thought I would try and make a largish bowl with an interesting geometric design.

 I created a slump bowl into a towel tied across a lampshade,  smoothed it out and left it to dry to leather-hard.

Next I painted it with 2-3 coats of pale blue coloured slip.

Then I decided to add some random splashes of dark blue coloured slip.

Now it was time to draw out a design.

 

I followed the Mustansiriya Madrasa pattern from the book  ‘Islamic Geometric Patterns’ by Eric Broug.

I placed the pattern onto the middle of the dish and pin-pricked around the outlines.

I then peeled the paper off, replaced it so it would tessellate, and did the process again.  I added the pattern 5 times in total.

Then it was time to carve out all of the mark lines. 

 

This is such a satisfying process.  Very zen like – until it goes wrong of course!

Once done, it was time to leave the bowl to dry out some more (fingers crossed it survives) then off to the kiln to be biscuit fired.

Sgrafitto – kidney dishes

 I thought I would practise my new found Sgrafitto skills on my kidney dishes.

They had been dried to a leather hard state (not fired) and then coated with three coats of coloured slip – orange on one and bright blue on another.

They had been dried to a leather hard state (not fired) and then coated with three coats of coloured slip – orange on one and bright blue on another. 

 

(The colour comes out when the firing process is finished.)

I decided on a kind of visual illusion pattern – which looks better on a flat piece of paper to be honest, but I think it did work quite well on this.

I started by marking the dishes out in sections…….

……then carved smaller lines into each of those sections.

I am quite pleased with the result of these.. off to the kiln to be biscuit fired before being glazed and fired again.

Learning Sgraffito

 This morning we had a ‘slip decorating’ demo planned, and our tutor had prepared a large dish to demonstrate on.

As I was hanging about the room as it was being prepared I asked some questions about how to apply my Sacred Geometry designs to clay – I was told to go home and prepare I pattern and he would show me during the demo.

So I went home and found a relatively easy pattern to draw on YouTube - https://youtu.be/m10l55vMTOw

And got to work.

Back at Uni, I placed the design onto the clay and pinned around the lines to give me a grid.

The clay had been painted with 2-3 coats of coloured slip.

Then it was time to carve out the marks with a carving tool.  Through the coloured slip and into the base clay underneath.

There were lots of other techniques going onto this plate too, but it was really cool to be able to add some of mine.

Rob (Tutor) then started adding coloured slip and other marks, some stencils and other bits to the dish.

This is the finished dish, with loads of decoration going on.

I have now been given the task of trimming it and getting it ready to fire – then I can keep it!  😊