Coloured Aged Looking Bonsai Pots

I've been on a mission over the last 6 months to try and replicate a pot that had been made a year or two ago.

Unfortunately I don't seem to be in the habit of writing down my concoctions of washes and glazes.  It came back to bite me in the butt with this one.

You think at the time of making, that you'll remember......but it just slips away over the months, never to be remembered  again.

This is the pot, the large oval on the bottom.

Several people have tried to pry it away from me. Unsuccessfully I might add. 

The pic doesn't do it justice, it has that aged antique hard life look about it. 

I've made a few much smaller pots that have been close in appearance to it, but it wasn't until the last glaze firing that I think I've finally cracked the right recipe.

Its now written down!



 The other 4 on top of this oval are the results of the last firing - close enough I think.

Slowly but surely the shelves are getting stocked up again, they were looking a little bare after the spring repotting.

There still aren't too many ovals amongst them as they're quite time consuming to complete successfully.

You'll probably notice that I have a bit of a thing for pots with textures. So I had a bit of a play with coating clay and stretching it.

 This reminds me of the fissured bark on some bonsai trunks as it ages and stretches the outer layers of bark over the years.  This red colour will turn dark brown when fired with the recesses keeping the white colour of the clay.

This pot had a little white/buff slip mixed in while making the "crackle", it'll be interesting to see how this one turns out.

Some little accent planters with a stretched texture.  Its a shame you don't see much of it when they are turned up the right way, still enjoyable to make though.

 Finally, a few pots waiting to get their first bisque firing.   The kiln isn't big enough to hold too many of the larger pots, so it has to be a mixture of sizes to get it as full as possible.  Some pots can wait for a couple of months to get fired, it all depends on having the right space for them.