First Batch of Ceramics

I am in a ceramics class and loving it. I wanted to share the process and some of my work with you folks.

Okay, you may recognize this piece from an earlier post. It is a Miyazaki inspired lantern/incense holder/bizarre sculpture that always makes my teacher laugh. I'm not sure if that's good. Anyways this is right before the bisque in an electric kiln, after that the clay turns pinkish, then after the final firing it turns dark and gritty where unglazed. The black and white is different slips which you can use to manipulate the color of your glaze.

I have to mention, the amount of cross over between various mediums of art is huge. My concept of form comes from my understanding of form in photography. It has helped me predict certain elements.

The highly technical process of glazing:

Below is the colors I glazed each piece.

We loaded the kiln.

Lighting the kiln is a process. It's actually light it the day before, but just the "piolet lights," which is basically a torch, not your typical piolet light for a stove. They slowly raises the temperature to around 1100F by the morning. Then the kiln is turned on, the two pipes about two inches wide blow large amounts of natural gas into the chamber raising the temperature to around 2450F. This takes about 6-8 hours based on how much pottery is inside the kiln and how it is stacked.

This is a spy hole to keep an eye on the cones, which indicate the temperature of the clay versus the temperature of the air. As certain levels of heat are achieved, different cones fall over. I burned off all the hair on my hand holding it about a foot and a half away from this two inch hole. I was trying to see if it would burn my camera. Turns out it would. I safely took a photo at three feet, which was much cooler. 

Finally, the pieces cooled off and came out of the kiln. It was like christmas.

This is my mountain figure. It is strange how the glaze bubbled where it overlapped but I like it. I was trying to make him look like a snow capped mountain.

This is my lumpy pinch pot figure. It feels really good to hold in your hand. Like really good.

Here is my Miyazaki thing.

I used a glaze known as Alfred Amber to cover this entire piece. The color changes depending if it is sitting on top of white or black slip, or just on the raw clay.

My first batch of ceramics!



[Notice the faint stingray on the box.]