More Bisque-Fired Organic Pieces

More pieces are coming out of the kiln now - a couple more bisque-fired pieces on the underwater/organic theme.

I've been making and building these pieces without much planning - for each one, taking a hump-moulded base and then working with its size and shape to create the final forms. It's been successful so far.

The first piece is based on anemone-type forms, the base had a flattened top which lent itself to having a different surface and texture to the sides. I used balls of clay on the top, flattened and then poked with a crochet needle. I'd seen surface forms like this on some corals. The end result is part sunflower, part anemone.

Anemone-1 at the drying stage

Anemone-1 bisque-fired

This piece has a hole so it can be wall-hung. It's about 20cm across and 12 cm high.

The second piece was much more of a surprise. I started off with a basic egg-shape formed from two moulded halves. I knew I wanted to create a form that had many fingers or tentacles all over it. What I didn't realise was that as I applied the tentacles to the form, it would change its shape as it was only part-dried. I think this made the final shape more interesting. The effect is part pine-cone, part pangolin, part coral.

Egg-coral at the drying stage

Egg-coral - bisque-fired

I'm not sure on glazes yet. I am thinking of a plainer white glaze with oxide stain highlights for the anemone, and a plain blue or pink for the egg-coral.

New home, new studio and a fresh start

I knew it had been some time since I last wrote about the pieces I had been working on, but when I came face-to-face with my last blog post I was surprised to see that it was almost two years ago I last blogged here!

A lot has happened in those two years, we've moved home, I had to set up my studio from scratch, dealt with my studio space consistently flooding (we've had an especially wet year and our property is very exposed to the elements; wind, rain, sleet, salt air...

After a struggle to set myself back up again and to get going, some new work is finally coming out of the kiln.

My favourite finished piece is another inspired by scuba diving and has influences from the coral, anemones, sponges and sea-urchins I've photographed.
   It's a stoneware piece; hand-built, glazed simply with an opaque matt stoneware glaze, highlighted with copper oxide stain and antique pink glass. It's about 30cm (12 inches) across and I've purposely used stoneware so that this piece can be wall hung outside.

Greenware coral-inspired piece on my new whirler!

Greenware coral-inspired piece seen from above

The basic shape for this piece is a dome, shaped using a negative plaster mould, the extra bits are.. ah well that's my secret! I rolled the clay slabs between pieces of sandpaper to attempt to give a grainy 'cellular' look to the tentacles, but the thick glaze made it impossible to see that in the final piece.

Bisque-fired coral-inspired piece with copper oxide stain accents

The tentacles retained their grainy texture during the biscuit firing. Here you can see the touches of copper oxide stain I've applied and its ready for the glaze to be poured over.

The glazed piece positioned in the kiln

Once glazed, I used glass nippers to break fragments of antique pink glass and then put the shard of glass inside the tentacles, where they would melt into glass pools. The glaze I used was a ready-made powder from Potterycrafts - P2227, the test tile for which (with copper oxide stain) can be seen here.

I was pleased with the final piece. The thinner rolled slabs for the added tentacles, the new shapes and the subtle colouring of the glass contrasting with the stain gives it a more sophisticated look.

The finished piece - wall-hanging

The finished piece - detail of melted glass

The finished piece