Saturday, February 28, 2009

Test Yumoni for Crawling Glaze

Here's a handful of test yunomi that I would really like to post. (It's a personal thing.)
This is a cobalt slip under a cone 6 white liner with the crackle and crawl glaze over it. It produces a very nice blue and matte white fused pinhole effect, but it's very, very hit and miss.
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A thin blue hares fur under a thick crawl glaze.
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This is our studio's blue hares fur under the crawl glaze.
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This is the crawl glaze over a cone 6 white liner.
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This is a thin crawling glaze under a blue hares fur glaze. This appears to be a very stable glaze combination. the white liner at the rim create really nice optics in the gaze surface. It's really a very handsome glaze combination.
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This is a basic crawl glaze over a cobalt slipped bisque.
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This is the crawling glaze over the studio's clear liner. This combination creates lots of texture! Very very Arty, but not really practical.

Friday, February 27, 2009

2-27 Kiln Load

Before I share what came out of this kiln load I really need to say something... Most people don’t realize how much risk is involved with creating studio ceramics. It’s really all old school alchemy. I stead of lead to gold, it’s clay to sellable work. (It really doesn’t sound as cool, I know, but still, it still takes a huge amount of study, confedence, and work.) I really felt that this was my riskiest kiln load of work to go through the studio in a good while. I loved all of the forms, and the slip stenciled designs were fantastic. It would have been so easy to push everything though with my “I pretty much know what I’m going to get” glazes that I’ve been working with over the past 9 months. But… I have a new glaze that I’ve been playing with. It's a generally untested glaze, but it’s proven to be an amazing glaze that breaks and crawls at cone 6. This load of work was designed to test this glaze’s interactions with most of my studio glazes. this is the point where I point out all of the beads of sweat, lots by the way, over this load of work. It's over 50 peices that will live or die when I open the kiln.

In a situation like this I quite honestly I would have been happy with a 50% loss ratio with this experiment. Hell, I’d have been happy with a 90% loss ratio. I had already seen what this glaze could produce and it would be worth loss just to get a handful of racers with it. I just didn’t know whether the racers I had made before were accidents of application and atmosphere, or whether my assumptions with this gaze were correct. Luckily I hit my marks with 6 out of 10 assumptions. There will be a few refires, but the bulk of this load is going up for sale. First come first serve, these really are amazing yunomi. A local venue has already laid claim to work that’s unsold by the 15th of March.



The first works I want to quickly note are the results of the Agate ware. These have been fired with a clear glaze. WoW! They really look great. The form’s true profile is pleasantly hidden by the marbling effect.
Love it! More in the next few day's...





Tuesday, February 24, 2009

EMT Stamp Exchange part 2

Yeah! I got my stamps today! They are beautiful... Thank you Charan!

If you are not familiar with Charan's work you should check out his website at http://www.creativewithclay.com/
or his blog at http://www.creativewithclay.blogspot.com/

His craftmanship is impeccable and his designs are top notch!

I've set them by my computer so I can look at them and plot how I'm going to begin making use of these little wonders. I can feel my world shifting with all of the possibilities! Just another hour or 2 until it's studio time. I can hardly wait...

These are what I got in the mail. The results of a group stamp swap for the Etsy Mud Team. I sent out mine just the other day...
If you would like to see the photos of everyone's stamps, just give this a click.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Experessions

After 5 days of Ibuprofen & Hydrocodone to help with a hurt back, I’ve got to celebrate this small victory by saying “Yes!” The 2 vases submitted for the “Expressions” show in Tracy, CA. sold last week! Happy dance! Doh! Ouch…

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Secret Studio Sale


Scorpio's LateNight Static Sale priced at $18

I’m starting the Secret Studio Sale project to highlight some of my personal favorite works from my studios inventories. I’m offering to share a few of these selected racers one at a time at a price temporally set to get them in your hands. These pieces really need to be handled to be appreciated. They are top quality examples of my pursuit of excellence and craftsmanship.

Click the photo for the link to my Etsy shop. Check back here over the next few weeks for a link to the current Secret Studio Sale item.

Your purchases goes towards helping fund my community activities that promote the Studio Arts in Northern California's central valley.

Thanks!
-Zygote-