More slab building

Character studies

Something I've done during the year on the side of the "real" studies. Part of them are  tests for my project to illustrate a book. Will update on it when it will be done.

Raku -fire, water, snow

We done Raku firing twise and on the second time we already had snow. The pieces were pre-warmed and then brought outside to the gas kiln. The kiln is brought up to 1000 celsius and then the pieces were taken with tongs to a metal barrel with straw and sawdust. After covering the barrel the pieces got smoked black on the unglaced surfaces and sometimes the glazes changed color due the oxidation reduction. Then the pieces were taken out with tongs and were given another temperature shock by putting them to a bucket of water or giving them a shower. Snow did the trick too! After the pieces have cooled down they are washed for admiring.

The assignment was in three parts.  One of them was to make a mask, which I took as an opportunity to test different things once again -which manifested as lots of little ones (lenght about 10cm).

 

Other task was to play with the black and white for what came the stars. And the Snowqueen that cracked.

 

Third mission was to go to the roots of Raku, Japan and zen. This I enjoyed the most for the unexpected unique results with combining different glazes on my bowls. Before the christmass vacation we had a small tea ceremony where everyody drank from the cups we made even Raku-ware is not foodsafe.

I got a bit carried away with testing different glazes. The result was lots of hearts to give away for christmass.

Oil lamps

First I wanted to do something very simple for this assignment. So I did hollow clay balls from two pieces and shaped them irregulary by rolling them against the table. My goal was to have a feeling of naturally shaped rocks. Then I cut a hole for the metal heart and continue to shape the ball and fix then the hole. The glazing was problematic -I didn't get enough  on the first time so I done some more rounds to fix things.

Last thing was to make a water proof test. I filled them and placed on a piece of paper for overnight. Luckily the paper stayed dry and the lumps are safe to use.

After I finnished the balls I got the real idea for the oil lamp -Tulitintti (Firebird)! The technigue for them was to draw with a dark glaze on a light glaze that have a same base receipt -kind of the same idea of Majolica. For that I done lots of test pieces to practise with the hand and brush -there is no place for mistakes with this technigue. If you mess it up you must wash away everything. For the birdies I had also two glazing rounds to fix some small beauty spots.

Woodfiring

 

 Our school has amazing woodfiring kiln in the yard build by the students years ago. In  the start of the first study year we already got a small taste of the possibilities when firing with wood, salt and athmospheric glazes. I took some late night shift for warming the kiln and was guite enthusiastic to learn all the stages and macig tricks even the main responsibility of the firing was on the second year class.

Here some of the very first pieces of the year that got to the honor to be in the wood owen

 Temmoku glazes

 A white glaze that didn't melt well.

With these soapholders I tested what will happen to the engobe without any glazing exept the ash that naturally comes from the fireing.

On the plates there is two different oxblood glaces that didn't turn out to be so bloody.

A bowl with celadon glaze that took from the owen some red spots that was not suppose to happen.

Lidded boxes

 

The assignment: Make three boxes with slab building technique that are not alike but that will make somehow a set. Also it's important to think for what they will be used for.

I made these from local low-fire red clay that I added grog to make it more strong for handbuilding and painted them with engobes. I've had in my mind long time to make "architypes" of buildings that I saw in Israel, so this was the perfect spot to try it out. Using slabs ment for me to be very patient to wait for the exact right time for each different shape and structure to build. This was a  good exercise to understand that very simple shapes can actually be very demanding. Also I wanted to apply the architectural details to the pieces the way that they would become functional. It took alot of mental dicipline (that dont come naturally for me) to keep my self focused on the task but it was worth all the suffering in the end -no cracks or disturbing bending, lids sitting perfectly and the wared out decoration was as I wanted it. I chose to not glaze the pieces to have beautiful matte surfaces, exept one have clear glaze on the inside for practical reasons.

Arabic-style garlic holder with window holes to keed the box well aired

Concreate building with legs to keep onions. There is also one airhole on the bottom, that doesn't show in the pics. The lid dont have a knob but "walls" that you can get a grip from. It also could be a serving dish on it's own.

The fancy old house of Tel Aviv is a cookie jar with glazed insides for keeping the box easier to keep clean.