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

Floral (dahlia) inspired stoneware garden pieces

And here are the finished fired pieces that I was glazing at the weekend. Unfortunately they are not good enough to be able to sell, some cracks and bits fallen off (which are disguised in the photos!) But they are good enough as prototypes now I have worked out the best way to build them so they hold up during the firing processes.

Here's the one with aqua-blue glass detail...

Ceramic stoneware floral decorative piece with aqua blue glass

Ceramic stoneware floral decorative piece with aqua blue glass - detail

And the 'antique' pink one...

Ceramic stoneware floral decorative piece with pink glass

Ceramic stoneware floral decorative piece with pink glass - detail

And finally here's some detail of the glaze - taken with my squidcam macro lens. The glaze reacts well with this clay and shows some of the buff colour and reacts with the iron(?) in the grog to give a speckled effect. It also shows a delicate crackle when seen close up.

Semi-opaque off white glaze (Potterycrafts P227) on grogged crank clay

Glazing floral inspired stoneware garden pieces

We're going to be moving house soon, which has given me the impetus to finish some of the pieces I have been working on so they are less delicate and more easily transportable. This also means I can photograph them and get them on my Etsy shop too.

I've had two large floral stoneware pieces hanging around in the 'in progress' shelf for some time now - no excuse for them not being finished other than laziness. So today I had a day to myself and prepared these to and some test tiles for a stoneware firing.

I'd previous glazed a similar earthenware piece in a shiny white glaze, but wasn't really happy with the finish. I knew I'd be able to glaze these two in a more subtle glaze.

Here's the first one (an identical form to the earthenware one) being glazed - pouring the glaze over it over a large bowl.

Glazing a stoneware floral piece with P2227

The glaze I am using is P2227 from Potterycrafts. This has a nice subtle semi-opaque off-white quality that works well with the glass. I'd used this before on a prototype piece but was keen to try it was a different glass colour.

Once the glaze has dried there is a lot of touching up to do by hand as the pouring method doesn't cover every part of the piece. Luckily the glaze is quite forgiving and tends to even itself out where application is not even, and will show interesting variations in opacity rather than highlighting drips and edges. After that is complete I upturn the piece and wipe excess glaze from the base before returning it upright and adding the glass. I use glass nibblers to cut pieces of glass from a sheet and drop them into the petals. During the firing the glass melts and flows so its not necessary to be too neat.

The second piece with  'antique' pink glass. The piece is more sunflower or daisy-like.

Glazed stoneware floral piece with pink glass highlights

I've finally worked out that the easiest and safest way to get these into the kiln is to add the glass with the piece on the kiln shelf, so I can just lower each shelf into the kiln rather than handling the piece itself. Much easier!

Glazed stoneware floral piece with aqua-blue glass highlights

There are being fired to:

1. Up to 600ºc at 150ºc per hour
2. 600ºc to 1260ºc at full ramp
3. No soak
4. Cool down

The kiln is cooling down right now but they will be out in the morning! Watch this space.