Throwing with porcelain again - what a difference a lunch break makes!

A new batch (well just one bag actually) of porcelain arrived last week. I'm trying not to over-order on materials as we could be moving in the next couple of months. I've been working on a project to create some rice bowls for a friend, and its been a path of experimentation into unchartered territory with porcelain and crystalline glazes, but I've learned loads along the way. Anyway I digress...

The glaze is sorted, all I need is some well-formed bowls to put it on! As shown in my previous post, throwing is still an unpredictable event for me, especially with porcelain, which I actually now love throwing with.

I started this morning by experimenting with different weights of clay to get the perfect bowl size. I tried 400g, 350g and 300g. 350g seems about right to be able to get a bowl that fits into your hand comfortably.  So far so good.

I managed 9 bowls in one 90 minute session this morning, 10 minutes per bowl to prepare the clay and throw each one. Not bad.  Here's the results of the morning session...

9 small porcelain bowls, freshly thrown

Then I stopped for lunch. Things didn't go so well after lunch, no idea why, was I getting lazy complacent after throwing 8 good bowls in the morning?

Three bowls in the afternoon were so bad they went straight into the bucket.  One had a hole in the bottom but I kept it anyway. 12 passable bowls in all from a total of 150 mins work.

15 small thrown porcelain bowls, 11 acceptable standard