Monday, March 3, 2014

Some New Pots Just Out of the Kiln

The kiln was unloaded a few days ago, and a couple of pots caught my eye for different reasons.

I love glaze colours that run into each other and mix and mingle.  Single block glaze colours would be my worst nightmare.  But thats just personal preference, everyone's different.

The pot below has a glaze that I added iron spangles too.  Just for a bit of an experiment to see what would happen. Iron spangles although quite fine, tend to sink to the bottom of the glaze bucket, so if you want them in your glaze, be prepared to stir it alot.
You can almost see the iron spangles melting and flowing down the sides.  I scraped the sides of the glaze bucket and brushed some "extra" along the top rim.

Another pot that I really love is a "kiwi style" oval.  Yes, I know that plain and subdued is the way that many like their pots, but sometimes I like to do something a little different.  I've made a few smaller ones of this same style, so decided to sit down and concentrate for half an hour and carve out this pattern around the rim.

The Japanese and Chinese have beautifully painted and decorated pots showing their past history and culture.  Perhaps little old New Zealand should start tinkering with their own style too......just a thought.

If I want to make a decorated pot like this, I have to think ahead a little as my normal clay has a little more grog which tends to snag and tear if you try and carve out a design. It's a bit of a catch 22, as the finer the clay is, the higher the likelyhood of cracks appearing during firing, especially on large pieces.

Any way, back to the garage, I've got another oval half done.  Just waiting for it to firm up a little before tidying up the bottom and feet.