Clay /12

I'm back with a huge hoard of clay goodness to share! Over the last few months I've been busy making to fill up a kiln load for firing.  After the first fire it's then a busy couple of days painting all the pieces for the second firing - the exciting glaze fire! In this post I'm going to include a bunch of the pieces at their bisque stage for you to see because I personally love seeing progress shots!

Still loving terracotta!

I really dig the glaze on these guys!

I kept this bowl super simple + natural with just some white slip at the base that I scratched into.

I saw a trick online about making pendants using a syringe which I had to give a go

After months and months I have finally finished Tilikum! So proud that I saw this to completion.  I had an idea in my head right from the start and it turned out exactly as I envisioned (which is rare!).  If you don't know the story or haven't' seen Black Fish, it's a really tragic tale about an orca kept in captivity.  The documentary is definitely worth watching and hopefully my piece makes a little more sense afterwards!

More white slip fun and polka dots!

Another shot of tilikum

Lots and lots of terracotta test tiles

and some glaze testing

Some more fun using the interglaze which you put in between two different glaze types to hopefully get some funky results

I made myself a little paint palette.  
Previously, I was using a cheapo plastic one but a clay version is so much nicer!

A cross inspired by my love of all those beautiful ceramic pieces at the cemetery.  
I realised after making this that I simply can't do those ceramics justice - lesson learned!

A new bowl for peachy which I think lasted a few days before Ben dropped it.  We have concrete floors and they are not forgiving, I dropped my iphone the other week and it instantly went black and never turned back on *sad face*

I made two balls for my tilikum sculpture because I wanted to test different colours and sizes.  I loved them so much that I ended up putting the second one on a pink poodle I made below

I really really love how it turned out

Also 100% digging the underglaze paint kept raw over the terracotta

a shot to see how it looked pre-paint

aerial just for fun!

Some little evil eye pendants

and a fat little dog :P

after the bisque stage

and you can see where I kept some of the raw terracotta showing through

A tile to test out using a little squeezy bottle filled with glaze (not as easy as I thought it would be!)

and some garden markers for my herbs

(Seeing the before photos makes me wonder if I should have painted the words white :P)

Do you have a favourite?

Mine has to be tilikum just because some much love and thought went into him :)

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Clay /11

We've had a steady stream of making and firing and painting and firing clay of late so I have photos to show! Also I wanted to update you on my wheel adventures - I have thrown things! The pieces lack perfection but I'm proud to have picked up some skills via watching YouTube, listening to Ben and just putting in the time (couple with many non successes!). My wheel thrown pieces have only just been bisque fired so I'll wait until I paint them and we have enough things to run the second fire before I share those :) Today is a hodge-podge of other things just finished :)

This little guy was thrown by Ben I think a leftover from his ceramic study days. We wanted to fill a kiln load so he gave me a few things to try different paint styles with :)

Ceramic pendant :)

That little dinosaur I made years ago and he's just been sitting in our ceramic no mans land awaiting further action. Gold was an easy choice to finish him in - it's pretty fool proof!

Another little pot Ben had made and which got the paint treatment from myself :)

Some cats, fuji, the opera house, coral, sushi and clouds :)

I'm so happy with this spoon, I think I ended up making three or four, each one ending up with a fault but I was determined to see my vision come to life :) Talking about faults, I've collected a bunch of clay fails to share with you too in another post.

Some inter glaze test tiles, these turned out pretty awful but I was literally just going through all the various combos - in our next glaze firing I have a bunch more tiles to put through which I'm excited to see how they'll come out :)

I'd already made a flower holder but it ended up leaking so I worked a little bit harder on this guy to make it foolproof

Another Ben bottle (he loves making bottles) that I painted by laying some painters tape down first to mask out the designs.

Apart from the spoon, this lady is my favourite thing from this firing. Has anyone seen the OA?

And lucky last a little pinch pot I made :)

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Clay /10

I'm really proud to show you my clay results today!

This may sound odd but above are two of my favourite things I've made! On the left is a butterfly, pretty simple but I experimented with some glazes and was super stoked with how that glaze came out - shall try it on some more pieces in the future! On the right, is an incense holder which I really really love! I can't put my finger on why but I suspect it's to do with its simple form, pretty red dotted line and it's an object we use regularly with a nice function.

I'm so so proud of my sugar glider! It's maybe the most conceptual piece I've created. Do you remember back to when I found this guy and I took photos to remember him, I actually started sculpting him as well and the ideas kept unraveling until I thought about some flowers emerging from him to signify his death. He's been a work in progress but the other day I finally glued the wire onto the flowers and put him together.

I'm glad I kept pushing with that piece :)

This is a bowl I made for Ben's cousin Carmen, who stayed with us recently for her birthday :)

I made a bunch of flowers for my sugar glider piece with the intention of seeing what would work best. I love that gold flower but I shall use it for another project!

When in doubt, paint things in that gold colour! I've used one of the moons for another project which I'm really exciting to show you guys too!

Love this little guy, he went in for a third firing because I wasn't happy with his collar colour but now I'm thrilled!

Some more test tiles to making selecting glazes an easier process!

And finally a little pinch pot I currently have a tiny succulent in! 

In other news, Ben bought a pottery wheel. I've been pretty excited and dreaming up ideas ever since he expressed interest in buying one. Well, I think it's good to share how much of a struggle it's been for me. I'm only up to day two of trying but I feel like my progress is very very slow. I normally pick up crafts and creative things quite quickly but the wheel has made me feel like the biggest failure. I want to give up or cry or do something dramatic like throw the clay into the air but I realise this is a challenge I need to ovecome. I know I need to put in the time even if I keep failing. Anyway, something to keep you updated on and hopefully at some point this year I can say "look, I made this on the wheel!" :p :p

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Clay /9

So the other day I showed you the bisque and now it's time to show the final outcomes! To be fair, it's not all the clay as every glaze has a different firing temp.  These guys are the low range (we still need to do a high fire range) but to justify that firing we need to make more clay - welcome to the never ending cycle of ceramics :) :)

Lucky cats!

These guys have been waiting a long time to be fired but I'm pretty stoked at how they turned out :) 

A look inside the second firing! It's like Christmas opening the kiln door and then moments later followed by, "oh I could of chosen a better colour than that" :p

Point in case! Lol! 

Now that I have my test tiles, I should be more wise with colour choices and paint application - this glaze could have been magical if I would have done it super thick!

This guy was my favourite!

Do you remember my smoothing/breaking woes? Well this guy was only slightly smoothed and I think he turned out fine for that effort :)

Mr. cockatoo, mmm, not sure! I do dig the dots, but the yellow I used was so bright! We do have a softer yellow but I didn't realise until doing the test tiles and comparing the colours. I do regret doing the tips of his wings yellow, I might try and paint over and re-fire him, athough that can be risky.

Pretty Mermaid - sucker for a white/pink/black combo

Super super love for this guy despite his tail and foot being broken (although I was already aware of the breakage so less heartbreaking). What I love about this guy is that I tried to walk that fine art line with him. I already loved how the kangaroo paw came out on my last kangaroo planter but I wanted to devote a bit more time to sculpting + design. Unfortunately that extra time meant I broke him - ha! But hey, you're always trying to grow as an artist right?

I gave up on these beads when I saw them (they also take the most time out of any clay making which made their mediocre even more heartbreaking). Fast forward a few days later when I was on a walk and it came to me to just string them up before giving up and hey presto, now I love my new necklaces :)

 Also, I ripped off Ben who has been making ceramic bead jewelry way before me :p

Another angle of the kangaroo :)

The magical test tiles I keep talking about. I have a bunch more ready to go in the higher temp range as well. You can also see here the super bright yellow on the bottom row (which I used on the cockatoo) and the more mellow yellow above it which I think would haven been a smarter choice.

And lucky last Mr. bandicoot. He was going to be a test on whether or not I could skip the sanding stage and errr, skipping that stage is a thumbs down from me. I've seen some incredible sculptural pieces using the texture of the clay to their advantage but for me putting in that extra smoothing effort results in pieces I'm happier with, so for now, I'm going to keep sanding and hope that my rough handed-ness can become a little softer :p I think a 70% sanding effort might be the magic number!

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