Glaze and Surface Texture Explorations

Absence
It's been a long while since I posted to my blog. A few things have happened to cause the delay.

First, I had an emergency move to a new apartment. The new place has very little natural light, and my attempts at macro photography of my tea sessions and pottery pieces yielded very poor results, jeapordizing my commitment to make this a visual blog.

Second, my routine quickly became: wake, work, cook, clean, pottery, gym, sleep. On weekends, I have been visiting my ailing father, building a container garden, traveling for business school interviews, and occasionally having tea with the LA Tea Affair or other groups of friends.

I have returned, macro photo studio in tow. The brown background pics are the last photos of work I took at the old apartment. The white background pics are new pieces. Many more to come in the following weeks.

Currently, my studio time has me exploring lidded forms, glaze calculation, and surface texture.

Form
Initially, progressing through pottery in the order of bowl, cylinder, vase, lidded form, teapot seemed the most logical in terms of building skills. While that may still hold true, I failed to realize that somewhere along the way I might get stuck or, as is the case, choose to stay in one subcategory of forms because I enjoy them so much. The progression above also indicates naivete about other variables: some pieces are easy in one size, more difficult in another, and the kind of clay used (stoneware, porcelain, sandy stoneware, etc.) also influences the relative ease.

Formulation
Glaze calculation's science and adjacency to cooking captured my interest, too. After reading up on the subject, I have been experimenting with altering glaze recipes, and have produced some nice variants (and ridiculous failures). Without my own kiln, though, formulating recipes from scratch will prove a time-consuming process.



Above is a glaze layering combo whose results suprised me. The Mother of Pearl glaze melts the black glaze I applied over it, creating a bluish fur texture. Detail:



Here's the same combo on a kyuusu-style teapot I made. The spout, while better and more functional than my last, hideous teapot, still needs major work. Unfortunately, I neglected to poke a hole in the lid for proper air pressure. The lid fits so tightly that water does not come out when the pot is full.





Texture
I have picked up some tips & tricks regarding surface texture. The two jars below form the results of two variants of a single process. With the first jar, it gives the piece a texture like human skin, though the photographs capture this poorly:







In this jar, dry clay and small holes acecnt the slight cracking texture. I really like the raw earth look to the piece.









I have new pieces that take this technique farther, but I am waiting for them to finish firing. I will share them soon.

Hopefully, though, my next entry will be a tea entry.