Sanity seriously in question now

This is the last one for now...

And another one before bed...

I must be crazy...

One before bed

I applied a black slip tonight and then spent the evening after I got home shellacking the pattern and dotting the dots then wiped back the slip to reveal the white clay underneath. Now to bed to dream of dots and swirls.

200th post, and the results of my last firing at the studio before the sale

So I fired off a kiln load on Sunday, and here are the results

  

Not sure about the one with the whale. I love the pot, but the whale was supposed to be a smoky blue and it turned out cobalt blue. It is hanging from a length of high temp wire that was inserted into the lid at the green stage. The whale has a loop of wire as well, and it just hangs there.

More shellacky shellackery...

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…well I sure hope so. I have been working away on my shellacking and have found out quite a few things in the process. One, don’t be so impatient. The first few pieces I shellacked, I was so anxious to find out if it actually worked I may have begun the abrasion process a wee bit early. The shellac did feel like it dried really quickly and I even went to far as to dry them with a fan for a while, but once I started wiping them down with the wet sponge, I could definitely see a loss of detail as the shellac started to dissolve away with the clay. I did get some interesting results, but not enough depth to the texture. I was acting a bit like a kid on Christmas eve who could not wait to get into all the loot under the Christmas tree. I will admit that I have some experience with this as well, but no amount of subterfuge and precision re-taping on my part could ever fool my Mum. So after some so so results I managed to curb enthusiasm and wait it out. My last, and so far the best piece to date was a plain old tall cylindrical vase that I had coated in a purple/blue slip when still wet. I let it get bone dry and then waxed on my first initial design. I let it dry for 24 hours and then began abrading. Once I got enough depth and let it dry out. I brushed on my second coat of shellac, so that the first design was completely covered, as well as a little bit on the outside of the initial design. I waited another 24 hours, came back and wiped down again. After it was dry, I brushed on the last coat of shellac. I filled in most of the unshellacked spaces, leaving only the narrowest gap between the new coat and the previous coats. This time I waited 48 hours and then abraded again, this is where I was able to get the most depth as I wasn’t as worried about the shellac wearing off. Finally, once it had dried sufficiently, I brushed on a coat of black decorating slip that I had left over from a soda/salt firing I did at Medalta last February. It is a terra sig based slip with Mason 6600 black stain and rutile. I put on 2 coats for good measure and let it dry a bit then wiped down the shellacked areas, leaving the un shellacked areas black. When it was all said and done, it did appear very similar to Jim Gottuso’s pots, albeit the brushwork is not as precise and the decoration is definitely not as well thought out as Jim’s, but for a newbie, it was not bad. I also did the slip thing to some mugs I had previously shellacked, but used various other terra sig based decorating slips that were again left over from the soda/salt firing, but had different oxides added. There was a chrome green, a blue/green and a rutile slip. None of these have been glazed fired yet, but will post some in progress pics as soon as I get a chance to take the pictures. I have been a bit sheepish in posting them, as I would never want to be accused of copying someone else’s style, but I will just have to get over it. Like I said at the beginning, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery (I hope). In lieu of my bas relief pots in progress, here are some interesting little things I picked up at the studio the other day. Dave was cleaning house and had a collection of pots that he was giving away. They had actually been given to him as the original owner couldn’t sell them, and did not want to consign them to the midden heap for future archaeologists to dig up. Warning, they are very ‘70’s, so if you are easily offended by heavily reduced, dark brown groggy stoneware clay and iron spotted buttermilk glazes, please look away now ;) This little mug was made by Connie Westrom (now Connie Pike of Pike Studios), before she met/married Bob Pike I am assuming

And this slightly bigger mug is by Ed Drahanchuk

A wee little pitcher and matching sugar bowl, maker unknown...

Have a good one

I’m stuck in a sticky web of my own creation

In an attempt to make myself a little more crazy, I began the shellacking process on Sunday. As I mentioned in a not so past post, I have been drawn into the highly textural surfaces that Jim Gottuso creates on his pots. I wanted to “practice” on a few pots before I subject all of the mugs I have been working on to this process. So I took some bowls that have been kicking around and have yet to make it to bisque and began shellacking. I started the process at around 9:30 am on Sunday, and managed to get 3 bowls all finished by 3:30. 2 of them just had very random patterns that were more of a “how much can I scrub” test, and “how much detail can I get” test. The one I spent the most time on was what I was going to call my paisley pot, but after it was all said and done, it might be more of an embryo pot. I freehanded in pencil the initial paisley nuclei all over the pot and then filled them in with shellac. I was not sure how long it would take the shellac to dry/harden, and was quite surprised to find that it went from tacky to try in no time flat, but did put it in front of a fan just to be extra sure it was hard. I did find that if the shellac was not quite thick enough, it would erode with the scrubbing, so I tried to keep the scrubbing to the absolute minimum. I then repeated this process and outlined each paisley just a little bit more and then again eroded the un shellacked surface to reveal another step down. Repeated ad nauseum until it had a bit of a malachite look to it, except the central nucleus is a paisley, or in some of them, slightly embryonic…I ended up doing about 6 layers of shellac.
Previous to the shellac, I got to excited to wait to get the flakes and did a few mugs, but used the wax resist instead. It worked pretty well, but you need to use really, really, really cold water to help keep the wax from getting soft and wiping away too easily, so my hands would get really, really, really cold I could have used heavy rubber gloves, but that would have been too easy and would have required a little bit of forethought and planning.
In my impatience to get the shellacking started (I like the word shellacking), and then of course the interruption of my afternoon on Saturday by an Irish Leprechaun that required my ingesting 3 pints of Guinness, I did not get to the hardware store as planned to buy the requisite parts to fix my shower. This is however coming to a head pretty quickly. I was standing in scalding hot water and showering in relative tepid water with intermittent bursts of cold water this morning.

FFWD a couple hours...I went to Lowes and picked up what the dude said should work to replace the diverter (first mistake)
This is what he sold me

Maybe I should say that it was the second mistake. The dork that tiled the bathroom a few years ago managed to block the diverter in its hole with grout. I was able to chip it out but I had visions of having to rip out all the tile
Anyway, after I calmed down and got it out, this is what I found:

As you can see, the diverter stem is much longer than the new one. However I discovered what the real issue was anyway and luck would have it that in past plumbing adventures, I had a few spare o rings that thankfully fit the business end.

The broken o ring was actually stuffed in between the stem and the outer casing.

Looking forward to a 1st world shower tomorrow.