Friday, July 15, 2011

The Pottery for Josh and Erin

I am busy working on making the pots you will be gifting Josh and Erin, but I have been asked to give you a preview of the type of pots that will offered. Once I have the pots made and fired in my kiln I will list individual pieces on each entry.

This is the glaze scheme they have decided on:






And these are the types of pots that will be in their place setting: An 11 inch Dinner Plate ($30), an 8 inch Salad Plate ($18), and a nice sized Bowl (also $18). There will be 12 place settings in all, so that makes 36 individual items. This is what the shapes will be like:





I hope you agree that these will be a lovely gift for those crazy kids!


The progress so far:



The first run of bowls is underway. In order to end up with the required 12 of each item I will most likely need to make at least double that number. There is plenty that can go wrong, so compensating for losses always becomes part of the process. It isn't as easy as buying something off the shelf, after all. Getting the shapes right often takes a bit of practice, and then making them consistent is its own challenge. Each of these pots are then carefully dried to a state where they will have a foot trimmed into the bottom. Plenty can go wrong in both the drying and the trimming stages. Then making sure things continue to dry slowly is its own process. If things go too quickly the pots can warp or get cracks. This is especially an issue for wide flat things like plates, which you will remember I am making 24 of. And sometimes the pots can seem fine going into the first firing, but come out with cracks. But probably the most difficult part of bringing a new pot into the world is making sure the glazing is done right. Too thick or too thin can totally alter the outcome of each glaze. And then if the glaze is fired too hot or not hot enough the glaze can get ruined. Typically I lose from between 10 - 25% of my pots at this point. Kind of breaks my heart, but these days I have just become used to it. So please keep your fingers crossed!

The first firing is complete!




 

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