Colored slips

More bottles. Playing with underglazes and the banding wheel. When they come out of the kiln I will be using iron oxide in the spray booth and my Bone glaze which is semi opaque so the colors will not be this bright. No matter the medium; painting, textiles, clay. I've always worked this way. Bright colors masked with dingy layers to give it age and patina. I prefer second hand clothing as well.

This is my Streamline cup. It comes from a one piece mold and is cast usually in porcelain. I'll cast it in recycled clay too but sometimes the rim warps a bit. Again, colored slips. I make all my own slips using a ∆6 vitreous underglaze recipe and then adding about 20% colorant. I am also experimenting with Bauer flashing slip with 20% colorants in the wood kiln and soda kiln. The colorants I use are for the most part Mason stains. For Black I use Black Iron Oxide.

Here is a break down of the quilted cup. The bottom, as shown in previous posts is a three part slip cast mold. The top is a hand built coil that is rolled out with a pony roller and then cut on the side that adjoins to the cup. That leaves the upper edge a 'live edge' or natural edge. This gives each cup it's distinctive personality and size.

Here are a couple of new colors for the alphabet cups. The leathery one in the center is our Bone glaze with Pumpkin on top. The one with the blue ring is our Emerald glaze (Bone glaze with copper oxide) with Bright Sky Blue on top. 

Our Bone glaze is Ron Roys Bone High Calcium Semi Matte base with 5% Titanium and 1% Rutile. For those who do not know who Ron Roy is check out his book Mastering Cone 6 Glazes. Bright Sky Blue recipes are all over the net. 

Sunny day in the studio

It was a day of glazing and slip making in the studio. I always sort of dread doing it but once I get into it I enjoy it. Besides, who doesn't like unloading a batch of glazed ware! I had a bunch of alphabet cups to glaze, some plate sets, and a few crocks to glaze.

I spray all my wares with iron oxide. Sometimes I glaze over the whole thing and sometimes just the inside and lip.

The plates are sprayed with iron oxide and the texture is wiped off leaving it heavier where the texture is recessed. Same with the cups.

Here are the alphabet cups ready for the kiln. They will fire to ∆6 in a computer controlled L&L. 

As you can see the plates are completely glazed while the small bowl has exposed iron oxide which will vitrify at ∆6 and make a nice smooth durable finish all on its own. 

Slip casting is great. It allows me to design pieces and later just go through the motions of making without thinking about it too much. It fits my personality very well. Making slip from recycled clay on the other hand is tedious and back breaking. I mix up 120#'s of clay at a time and add 60#'s of water and a couple of deflocculants, soda ash and sodium silicate. This batch has been sitting for the past week waiting for me to have the time to sieve it. Since the recycled clay is made up of many different clay bodies so there is sometimes grog and sand I want to remove. A Talisman sieve does the trick.

I use a corded drill with a paint stirring attachment to mix my slip.

Here is the talisman sieve. I use an 60 mesh screen. It kind of works like a giant food mill.

Properly deflocculated slip. 

A clean shot of the sieve. They are made in New Zealand and are available a most pottery supply houses. 

It was rough being in the studio today due to it being such a beautifully sunny day out! But we had the doors open and felt the warmth of the sun! Aw spring!

When I got home my boy Noah and one of his friends were out chasing the goats around in the sunshine! It was a good day. Tomorrow we are going off island to get clay in Seattle and other supplies.