Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Ceramics: trouble in the land of fun and confidence

Yep!
I had already fears and ghosts clammering : watch-out! for cracks! cracks!

Everything cracks!

First pieces I saw in the workshop. O-O it cracked !
my first plate cracked, the three next ones cracked- no more plates for me! well you get to live with cracks. Get around them.

Baby sitting - the drying process:
For a few months, weeks I was in the dark. I saw my fellow workshop allies making pieces, firing them and bringing them home. I had not yet fired anything and my shelves were getting more and more full. I was keeping my pieces wrapped under plastic- and nothing was drying!!!! One day it dawned on me, and the wish to fire was greater than the fear of cracks, and I pulled those plastic bags off my pieces and they finally got to a stage dry enough to get kilned! HURRAY! big breakthrough!

Next challenge: get out off the  COLOR MUDYNESS MESS/RUT !!!! ( Jenny Mendes*, help!)

Here a carved jar, and it's Kerplunk present ugly realtity:



Dreams of  chartreuse lime green  gone! The piece lost most of it's carving and is stuck in the land of mudyness.

LESSON # 3: DO NOT REFER TO OTHER PEOPLES TEST TILES!!!!! the workshop wall of test tiles, the test tiles on the 5 gallon glaze buckets,etc,...

and, a reminder of previous lessons:

Lesson#1: stop freaking about cracking - and do something about it, experience, explore, get aquainted with the fallin-off of hands and legs and parts,... slow dry,...use magic mender for high fire,... still in process ( still won't tackle making a plate)

Lesson #2: remove plastic bags if you want piece to eventually become bone dry!

Now:
Lesson#3: Make your own test tiles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BUT HOW????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


*: Jenny Mendes is a goddess of color , clay. Master of creative and prolific work

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