Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I am pretty much done with my portfolio for this year, I am just finishing up the spike bottle forms and stringed instruments. I think I will use some of my pieces from my portfolio last year in my breadth to replace ones from this year I don't really like. I'm going to do some more breadth pieces to show, well, more breadth. I'd like to do some throwing and wood/metal pieces. Not sure what I'll have time for but after I the last of my concentration is out of the way I'll just see how it goes.

This is a piece I threw last year that I will probably include in my breadth:

Friday, March 19, 2010


Despite Amy making faces at me when I said I was going to fire the Rhino even though it kinda blew apart during bisque I smoke fired it. It turned out okay, obviously it would be better if it wasn't broken and if it was burnished (which I didn't do because it was going to be wood fired). From this angle you cant tell it broke anyway. I'm glad I fired it. I also fired the fish but you all can see it in class.

I have 2 bottle spikes ready to be bisqued, 2 leather hard, and 1 still just slabs. Hopefully Amy will give us some work time so I can assemble the one that is just slabs before it gets too hard. I also cut one of the ones that is leather hard out so now it has a sound hole (which might be too big), peg holes, and a string attachment point. On the next one I might try a different string mounting method.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I am almost finished with the forms I talked about in the last post, they just need to be burnished one more time, bisqued and smoke fired.

Next I would like to make a stringed instruments out of clay. I think I am going to make 3. One to be wood fired, one to be fired to cone 6 but without any glaze (or cone 10 in Matty's kiln depending how the test tile comes out, and the last to be smoke fired. They will probably be stringed with violin strings. We'll see how they go.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Photobucket

This is the game plan for the project I'm working on, a cross between the wall spikes and the bottle. I got them cut out Monday and scored together today. I made two, a little one and a big one, I hope one of them turns out okay. They will be burnished and smoke fired. When sketching them I was thinking about the leaf/fruit/seed pod forms so that's the thought behind them. They were originally intended to be wall hangings but they might be a little big and not flat enough, so we will see how I decide to display them.

The Rhino died btw. The stomach blew out and one of the legs cracked off. I will probably smoke fire the pieces I have left just for shits and giggles.