Work In Progress Wednesday: Circus Circus

These are close-ups of a rectangular casserole I'm working on-it's in the very early stages here. It's Vintage Circus inspired- which is something I really love- all the big fancy embellishments, almost Baroque- but much more playful, also fun repeating patterns, bold stripes, and of course elephants. Who doesn't love elephants?

I'm slowly starting to make more pieces so I can fill my kiln and fire those tile samples. and then I can get started pumping out the tiles for the back splash. But also I'm thinking I should plan to do a few more sales- craft shows and the like next fall- The girls are now getting to the stage where I can work for a little bit- N will be in kindergarten next fall- so I'll have much more time I think, (though A will be two so we'll be heading towards that style of fun). Anyhow, at the rate I go for completing stuff, I should have a decent amount of stuff to offer come next fall, if I can stay on track that is (with Spring sewing time coming I'm not sure how on track I'll be- but I shall try...If you're trying to stay on track by avoiding the siren song of spring sewing do NOT look at this,or this,or this, or this- but seriously how awesome is that last one?)

My thinking is to make a lot more oven to table style dishes, oven safe- good for regular use, but highly decorative, and not out of place with the 'good china'. There is a LOT of the typical brown country style pottery around here- I think the younger folks could use something different, a little more colourful, not as traditional. I think really functional ware need not be plain- though it's true that more embellishes benefit from hand washing, but really any casserole dish benefits from hand washing, right? What do you think, any favorite types of dish that you'd like to see in pottery, but don't too often?

Work in Progress Wednesday: Grog tests

The only work being done this week in my studio is grog tests for tiles. It's not too exciting- though it is exciting to see the pattern play out over more than one tile (the bottom left hand corner has one wonky tile from the first mold I made- I just used it to get done a little quicker- it's total crap- so happy I squared things up). So you can see how the pattern will repeat- I'm pretty pleased with it- though the real test will come after it's glazed.

Okay let's get a little technical- I'm using Plainsman M390 clay for these tiles- mainly because it's what I use for everything else- it's a good plastic clay- that holds up well to hand building, and is really white once fired so it looks good with bright colour glazes. I'd like the tiles to be glazed with my regular glazes- so I don't have to worry about testing and formulating new glazes- so M390 it is. The only thing about this clay is that it's not grogged- and non-grogged clay leads to warping and irregular shrinking, and it's tougher to work with as a tile. So I'm opting to try and add fine grog (fired clay dust basically) to the M390.  I'm also trying out some homemade paper clay (by wedging 1 ply toilet paper into the wet clay).

My method for adding the grog is to wedge it into wet clay- I know this makes my measurements a bit off percentage-wise- by adding dry grog to wet clay instead of dry grog to dry clay- I'll end up with a higher grog percentage, But all my percentages will be higher- so when I say 5 percent it's probably closer to 7, 2.5 closer 3.5 etc. Also I don't want to go to the trouble of mixing my clay from dry- unless I have to- I think it's safer for my lungs to work with the grog if I incorporate into wet clay because it's less dusty.

I started with 10 % dry grog ( 100 g grog - 1000 g wet clay) It was difficult to wedge in, and not very plastic, the clay got very dry, fast, it was unworkable.  I diluted the 10% mix  down to 5% by adding another 1000g wet ungrogged clay. The 5% clay was slightly dry, but as a result it came out of the mold quickly, and it dried nicely, the 2.5 % was not as quick to unmold- but it was a bit smoother- and dried down more, the.75% was smoother still- but also not as quick to unmold- it was the most like working with plain M390.

So far I like the 5% the best; the tiles dried very flat- they felt more solid and thicker right from the mold- they could handle a bit of sliding and flipping without deforming. My only concern is on how the grog will fire- Straight from the bag it looks grey- and I wonder if I'll be left with grey flecks in the white tile. That's why I'm also trying Paper clay (clay with paper fibers in it)- which would undoubtedly fire white.

Also I'm using a trick to help the tiles dry flat- waxing the edges with wax resist- so that they dry more slowly than the center. This works great for me, I've gotten the plain M390 tiles to dry flat with waxed edges and careful covering- but I'd rather have a sturdier clay mix so it's not as finicky. Next I'll get my paper clay samples done, and then make a bunch of stuff to fill the kiln so I can get firing these guys.

Work In Progress Wednesday: Plaster

The plaster mold from the last version of the tile- nice and dry now. 

My kid is standing on the table while I work- Chaos reigns.

A close up of the squirrel sprigs- these guys are so wee and cute.

Squirrel range of motion sprig molds- and plans for some squirrel-y casserole dishes. And the ever present baby feet.

This week has been taken up with my finally carving some sprig molds of squirrels that I've had crawling (or jumping, rather) around my brain since Christmas. A sprig mold is like an applique but on clay- you make a shallow model- and then mold it in plaster. I was going to do another tile mold- just so that I had at least two plaster molds to work from while making tiles- because there's quite a bit of drying time in the mold- so it would speed the process slightly, and I'm using an old 9x13 pan for the tile- because it leaves nice big edges and therefore a solid mold, but there's room in those edges for sprigs- or smaller tiles too- then it's not such a waste of plaster.

That's all for clay this week I'm afraid- Baby A has started taking 20 minute naps- then waking up briefly and sleeping on me for another hour or so- it sort of ties me up, during that time n is supposed to be having quiet time- watching a movie or something- so that I have a few minutes without someone speaking at me during the day- but she's started getting bored with all that- not enough time outside on these frigid days, I think, plus just you- know- being four, and very talkative (we were talking about her being a superhero, and she was wondering who her sidekick should be, and I suggested Brownie her stuffed horse- but she said it should be me- because I'm always helping her do stuff- which is funny because I always called her my sidekick- but the times they are a changing, I suppose).

If you have any projects on the go in your neck of the woods- leave a link in the comments-I'd love to see.