Blog - Page 20 of 36 - Marian Williams Pottery

I Can Do It!! A Large Handbuilt Bowl!!

After taking Helen Charles Workshop last month (Click here to see that post), I decided it was time to try my hand at making one without her supervision!

I was so impressed with the large bowl that a complete pottery virgin made that I decided to see if I could make one too.

This was the drawing and measurements that I worked from. As you can see, I have trouble following a map!

I decided to extrude pieces rather than coil and flatten. This speeded up the process.

I tried using a smaller torch, but found that on a piece this large it is too small - not adequate at all. — I tried using a smaller torch, but found that on a piece this large it is too small – not adequate at all.

I used a raku torch and propane canister to dry the pot as I built.

Here is the photographic record of my efforts.

Looking down into the inside of the bowl.

Side view of my bowl

Covered in plastic. There was so much condensation that I had to remove it.

I placed it on a high shelf in the enclosed part of my studio for slow drying.

Now what to do with this large bowl? Popcorn, ice cream…planter…or object de art?

Pot big or go home!

Marian

My Current Inspiration!

Creation Inspiration Musings Studio and Equipment

What is it that inspires you to go to the studio everyday and make art?

For me, it is a variety of things, but mainly images that get me going! Here are a few that I believe start my fire!

Photo frames, posters and a pic of my beautiful daughter, Liz!

I use a memory card filled with pottery images I like on a photo frame.

Some of my work displayed helps me think about what I need to make.

Beyond Mugs!

Creation Setting Up A Studio Studio and Equipment

I started throwing this week and found myself making mugs! Gee whiz! Can’t I get past that? I keep trying to push myself and find myself falling back into the COMFORTABLE ZONE!

So I took those mugs and altered them! Finished product is a sugar and creamer set with a tray and spoons!

I also made a sake set! My first and it definitely needs work. Next time!

Ronnie covered another table for me beside the slab roller-you can NEVER have enough work surfaces.

Hope this finds me moving forward!

Reach for the stars – or at least the top of your brain!

Copper Red and Royal Blue Pottery Bowl, cone 10 reduction

Copper Red Glaze Recipes – Cone 9 and Cone 6!!!

Copper Reds Glazes Recipes

Need more Copper Red Glaze Recipes?! I can’t seem to get enough!!! Here are previous posts on the topic of Copper Reds: Click Here!

I’m not sure most potters (and definitely most people!) understand the obsession for copper reds. Basically, it is the adventure of seeking something that is hard to find – a true treasure!! That’s the fun of it!!! Steve S. Saroff explains the passion well in a guest post on Carole Epps’ blog, Musing About Mud.

When going through some old Ceramics Monthly journals, I came across a couple of interesting articles on Copper Reds!!

This article gave some recipes for Cone 9 Copper Red Glazes that had some interesting hues and effects!

Although many of the chemicals are not ones that I normally use, it might be worth giving them a try.

Here are the recipes:

A Rogue's Gallery of Reds-Page 1 — A Rogue’s Gallery of Reds-Page 1

A Rogue's Gallery of Reds-Page 2 — A Rogue’s Gallery of Reds-Page 2

Crazy tho….found another article on Electric Kiln Copper Reds – Cone 6!!!! and I’ve worked so hard to get them in high fire gas reduction!!!

No matter, one of my best copper reds is a Cone 6 recipe that I use in the high fire reduction to cone 10 and it works great!

Here is a link to the recipes in the article onMore Electric Kiln Copper Reds by Pearson

Notice the number of seconds for the piece to be dipped/submerged!!

Interesting in the instructions the amount of time to “dip” the piece is significantly longer than I usually dip a piece – and it is different for each glaze – up to 10 seconds!

Good to find more copper red recipes!! I may give some a try! The quest for copper reds continues! Let me know what you think and if you have tried any of these recipes!!!

Upward and onward!

How To Handbuild Large Pots: Helen Charles Workshop

Creation Handbuilding Tutorials Workshops

I recently attended a workshop taught by Helen Charles on handbuilding large vessels. The workshop was offered by the Gold Coast Potters Association with Lynette Rogers as the convenor. Short version: IT WAS AWESOME!!!!

I never actually WANTED to hand build GIANT POTS! I am a thrower!

But when I saw the offering, I signed up! I really didn’t think much about what I wanted to make and there in lies the problem! I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to make!

My Drawing of the Pot I Hoped to Make and the Measurements.

So I quickly made a drawing on the back of the workshop handout!

Once we had decided on what we wanted to make, we then had to MEASURE the drawing! Cripes! Maths! Hate math! But…I did it! By multiplying each measurement by an increment (I did 3), the final pot will be, say 3 times, as large as the drawing. Works like a champ!

Helen Charles Demonstrating The Process Of Drawing Your Pot and Measuring It. Her Pots Are On the Right Side of the Photo.

And…that is ONE of the secrets to successful large pot building! We had to measure each step of the way and then correct if we were off course.

The other secret was to use BRT-a groggy raku clay that didn’t need slipping or scoring!

The final secret is to dry the pot as you are building it with a gas burner. This permits you to work more quickly and the pot can sustain the weight of each addition of clay.

Helen Charles Demonstrating Drying Your Pot with a Gas Burner.

The pot is built by rolling out coils, then flattening them with a rolling pin. These are then attached to the pot.

Helen Charles Demonstrating Rolling Out Coils to Make Slab Coils.

Blog Tip: On any of these small pics, just click on them and it takes you to a larger pic and then it will run a slide show of the pics in that group.

Here is my pot and the progression of building it:

My Pot: 1

My Pot: 2

My Pot: 3

My Pot: 4

My Pot: 5-leaning!

Marian Williams With My Pot at Its Critical Juncture!

My Pot: 6 Helen (The MASTER!!) had to come in and straighten up my pot and help me decide on a “new direction” for the final pot!

Helen Charles and Marian Williams with the Final Product!

Marian’s Pot-FINAL!

Ultimately, I had to have the MASTER!!! help me out as it had gotten off course!

Helen is a genius and helped me re-engineer my pot. She also SAVED!! several other pots!

Here are all the pots at the halfway point:

Kirsten Hague midway on her large jug.

Helen Charles and Paul Button with his vessel.

Claire Byrne’s umbrella stand.

Anne Mossman working on her large vessel.

Ann O’Connor’s pot mid way.

Robyn Roylance working on her large pot.

Midge Johansen working on her big nude pot.

Lynette Rogers working on her big vessel.

From Left: Camilla Murphy, Anne Mossman, and Wendy Hodgsen at the mid-way point.

Sandra Tafe’s Big Jar!

Marian Williams with my almost complete pot.

Here are pots in progress:

Kirsten Hague making coils and working on a handle for her jug.

Robyn Roylance adding coils to her pot.

Claire Byrne making great progress on her umbrella stand.

Camilla (first time potter!) with her lovely large potato chip bowl!

Lynette Rogers getting to the top edge of her pot.

Paul Button started on a SECOND vessel!

Midge Johansen’s sculpture pot now has boobs!

Sandra Tafe’s pot is getting much taller!

Marian Williams pot is almost done!

Kirsten Hague is wondering if the braided rope adds to her pot??

Here are pots being presented and critiqued by Helen and the group:

Paul Button presenting his gorgeous (pot 2) bowl.

Paul Button presenting his lovely altered form.

Ann O’Connor’s amazing jug-great handle!!

Claire Byrne’s umbrella stand turned out wonderfully.

Robyn Roylance’s pot was covered in fantastic flowers and leaves!

Kirsten Hague’s large pitcher/jug turned out great!

Lynette Roger’s large vessel was just gorgeous!

Midge Johansen’s nude vessel was fantastic!

Wendy Hodgson’s large envelope/package vessel was too cool!

Camilla Murphy’s big bowl was just incredible!

Anne Mossman created two (count them!!!) amazing vessels!

Marian Williams’ – yep, there it is!

Helen Charles class is awesome! I highly recommend it!

One of the most enviable students was a total newbie to clay, Camilla.

She built the most amazing large bowl! I told her that she should be very proud of herself as most people’s first pot is an ash tray (at best!). In fact, that is what I want to make next! A great big bowl.

So I went to Picasso’s Ceramics and Brad loaded me up some BRT!!!

Pot on, my pretties!

My Week In Clay!

Creation Handbuilding

Hello to all! You know how some weeks you are super productive and others – not so much!!!

Well, this was one of those weeks!

But got heaps done in general and moved ahead in several areas.

Firstly, Ronnie graffiti’d my raku shed that he “fixed up” for me last week!!! Funny guy!

Secondly, lots of stuff made last week was drying!

Thirdly, I took some pots by Sheoak Gallery to see how they sell there!

Bowls In Sheoak Gallery in Fingal, NSW Australia

Tenmoku Platter In Sheoak Gallery in Fingal, NSW Australia

Rutile Blue Glaze over Greg Daly's Opaque Green In Sheoak Gallery in Fingal, NSW Australia. — Rutile Blue Glaze over Greg Daly’s Opaque Green In Sheoak Gallery in Fingal, NSW Australia.

Multiple Glazes on Pod Dish In Sheoak Gallery in Fingal, NSW Australia

Multiple Glazes on Stoneware, Cone 10 In Sheoak Gallery in Fingal, NSW Australia

Fourthly, I started making some clay angels!!!

Fifthly, I finished editing and then uploaded the video about Rob Barron!

Rob Barron’s Studio/Kiln Visit and Throwing Demonstration

Sixthly, I purchased this cane patio set-3 piece!!! in great condition!!! for $50.00!!! Unbelievable!!! and they threw in the drink/magazine stand for free! Don’t need them-just couldn’t resist such a bargain! You can’t buy much of anything for $50.00!!!

$50.00 Cane Set!! with Drink Holder and Magazine Rack Thrown in For FREE!!!!

So…fairly eventful, but nothing much new! I’m off to Raku at Tweed Arts Unlimited on Saturday and a Helen Charles workshop on building BIG pots on Sunday!!! Yea! more pottery!!!! It’s raining, so nothing to do anyway!

Hope you have a great next week and be sure to check out the pottery goings-on on Mud Colony!!!

Refiring Glazes: Before and After Photos

Firing Gas - Reduction Glazes Refiring Glazes Results

Here are the before and after photos of my most recent refire. All did not look this different and some looked worse. But I think it is obvious that these did reach temperature in this second firing!

Top Two Pieces Are The Refire of the Above Pieces.

A Video Of Our Mud Colony Visit to Rob Barron’s Woodfiring Studio & Kiln

Amazing Potters Firing Studio Tours Woodfiring

Rob Barron’s Gooseneck Pottery

I have made a video of Rob Barron’s Gooseneck Pottery kiln opening which the Mud Colony group visited recently. The video also includes Rob talking about his firing and shows him throwing a large jug.

Enjoy!

Raku and Refiring Pottery: Is It Worth It?!

Creation Glazes Handbuilding Raku Refiring Glazes Results Totems

This week was filled with refiring a bunch of marginal pots and raku-ing my little wood-fired raku kiln to make raku totems!

View from my pottery studio patio swing! SWEET!!

Refiring Glazes:

I made the decision to refire some pots from the last firing.

It was either toss them and take a hammer to them or give it a go and see what the results were. It’s a big exercise in futility if nothing looks better, but because my last firing didn’t reach temperature, I was pretty sure that I would be happy with SOME of the results and that was good enough for me!

The process was:

Select pieces that could benefit from a refire.
Make a thin solution of CMC and water-paintable.
Coat the pieces with CMC where you want to add new glaze.
Add new glaze to the CMC’d pots by dipping, spraying, trailing or simply painting.
Fire as usual!

In general, I was quite happy with the results. The ones that STILL look ugly to me, will either go in the Seconds box or I will destroy them with the same glee that went into making them! Sad, but true!

White with sprayed Iris, Cobalt blue and copper red glazes-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction

Cobalt Blue with Iris, Red, and Teal accents-High Fire Cone 10 Reduction

I’ve tried refiring before-here’s the post about that.

Wood-fired Raku Kiln:

I haven’t fired my little wood-fired raku kiln much-just lazy I suppose! Here’s the previous post on building it!

So put it to the test and fired lots of little pieces for a totem. Some came out good-others bad, but I did construct a totem!

Ronnie decided I needed a proper raku shed (code: Get your raku stuff out of my barn!). So he took the tractor and cleaned out an area and took the junk out of an old ramshackled silo! So now I have a raku shed outside the barn, but still under cover. It is a bit messy, smoky, and trashy! But is it worth it? Oh Yeah!