Stages of slip

As I blended up an ice cream container of slip for my Mishima experiment I thought perhaps I could use some of it for slip painting. I used a humble paint brush to apply this slip to a damp leather hard greenware cup. The design is quite course but I’m hoping to add some finer details after the bisque firing. The benefit of adding my design at this stage is it will be stable during the glazing stage. I can put as much runny glaze on this as I’d like and these blue leaves will go nowhere.

As this is tinted slip, the design is slightly raised. I’m going to rub these down once it is perfectly dry to ensure it has a good hand feel once fired.

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This cup sat on the shelf as I continued my stained slip experiments. I ended up filling a tiny squeeze bottle full of this slip and trailing on some stems. The finer detail really helps. I quite like the added dimension to the texture too. Now I’m looking at the photo, I really should have used a sharp tool to sgraffito some lines into the leaves. Ah well.

I’m hoping this stain won’t move after the bisque firing. It’d be a great way to avoid running of the detail. Then I could use the blue over glazes with abandon!

Mishima

I’ve been following a YouTube channel called Karen’s Pots and Glass. Karen’s is a ceramics teaching and during the covid restrictions she has been creating daily videos for her students. She demonstrates a lot of different techniques and introduces new concepts rather well. I thought I’d give a recent technique a try - Mishima.

Mishima involves cutting a design into a leather hard item and then back filling the design with coloured slip. The slip is then scraped away to create a flat surface for bisque firing.

I haven’t fired this yet as it’s been a bit wet and I’m not 100% sure it is dry enough.

Initial thoughts:

I probably should have learned to carve clay first. I need some better tools as a twisted bit of misc wire really isn’t the best cutting tool. I’ll be investing in a tiny little diamond shaped tool next time I visit Potters Market!

I made the slip by blending in some stain (not mason stain) with my stick blender. It hasn’t blended perfectly and there are still occasional dry clumps of stain. Consistency is good so I might try some slip trailing as well.

The slip was too shallow in some of the grooves as it shrunk slightly as it dried or slumped into the lines. I’ve gone over some of them a second time to address this issue. I think using a paint brush instead of a rubber bulb might be the solution for this.

I had trouble maintaining a smooth surface during scraping. I’m going to have to go back and ‘sand’ the outside of the cup with my fingers to remove evidence of the scraping. I doubt there is an easier way to do this apart from reducing the amount of excess slip and thus lessen the scraping.

I think this will make a great layered glaze. I’m curious how it’s go with runny over glaze. Perhaps I could preserve my beautiful delicate black outlines in the bisque firing then runny over glaze will not deform my design. If I didn’t mind the dints, I could arguably achieve something similar by brushing the under glaze onto the leather hard green ware then wipe it off again. Something to follow up!

Let there be Light?

My first oil lamp - essentially a thick bottomed bowl with the sides pinched in and sealed. Glazed in a yellow outer with a clear semi-gloss coat to seal the interior. A simple triangle pattern was carved into the greenware prior to bisque firing along the foot.

A bamboo torch wick and citronella oil for firing, both purchased from Bunnings. Due to the kink in the neck the wick was a little tricky to insert but this does prevent the oil from sloshing out the front.

The lamp was pretty easy to fill and the wick adsorbed the oil very quickly. I cannot completely fill the reservoir as the wick lip is around the same height as the rest of the bowl so oil will seep into the open and pool under the wick.

This lamp produces a rather large flame when lit. This could be related to the loose wide weave of the wick (too large), the protrusion of the wick (too long) and partly, the strong wind. I'm going to modify what I can when it's less windy and see if I can get this to be sufficiently manageable that I'd risk having it inside.

I may have to carve a dragon into one of these.

Not medieval shading experiments

I really wasn't sure how this would turn out. This is a rather short cup and I wasn't sure how to decorate it. I was cruising around Pinterest waiting for some inspiration to hit and stumbled across some beautiful mendalas. Eager to try some of the shapes I'd seen, I used multiple shades of blue and blended them into each other. I then went over with some  dots and lines to provide an additional design element. Most of the blue came out darker than I thought it would and the light blue dots are a little thick as they were applied with a paint brush. Still, I'm rather happy with the outcome.

One of my friends said this looked like snow so next time I'll trial some snowflake designs in the blue instead.

Green globe attempt 7

There is no extant item to go with this globe cup as I designed it myself. I'm quite happy with the light/dark balance though I wish I'd learned the 'do not underglaze the rim' lesson before I completed this one.

All fired. The image is a little blurry but some of that is due to the glaze running slightly. Still, I'm quite happy with how this turned out.

Green globe attempt 6

I fell in love with this pattern. I cannot find this extant bowl anywhere though. I can't even find it in any of my Pinterest collections which baffles me. I know I had this saved as a post-to-be on this blog but I can't even find that now. Even Google image search has failed me. If you know any of the details of the image to the right please comment!

On the left is my copy of the motifs. I really like the balance between the thin lines and the thick ones here.

Overglazed in sea green then transparent green and fired to stoneware. This came out lovely, I'm so happy with this cup!

Green globe attempt 5

This was my 5th attempt at a green globe cup. I think I have figured out the difference between batch 1 & batch 2. Batch 1 was glazed at peak summer just after 12th night. Batch 2, glazed about a month later during cooler weather. As a result, a lot of the water from the first mid-green glaze didn’t evaporate before I dipped the cups in the translucent green. This meant less translucent green so a lighter frothier pale green. This time the first coat was given more time to dry so more of the translucent green glaze stuck. It provided a better green colour however the translucent glaze has a fair amount of silica in it so too much will make the glaze run and smear the under glaze.

Kashan cup with stylised vegetal decoration and inscriptions under a transparent turquoise glaze, Persian, early 13th century. Sotheby’s. Arts of the Harvey B Plotnik collection, item 177. There is also a slightly fancier version with slightly different proportions in the Victorian and Albert museum here.

Pictured above is the extant ewer whose pattern I have utilised. Per standard, I haven’t even bothered replicating the text as I do not know what it says nor do I know what effect an imprecise replication could have. I just loved how well balanced this design was and wondered if I could manage something similar. The original is 12cm high while mine is only 8cm, two thirds of the height. Skipping the basal section seemed like the right approach to maintain the shapes and ratios. I think it has worked out quite well.

The design in black under glaze. This was quite fun to do as the pattern wraps around the bulb of the cup quite nicely.

Fired. A small amount of running has obscured parts of the design. An interesting lesson from this cup - do not underglaze the rim. On previously posted green glaze cups it is possible to see the rim of the cup has very thin glaze. This section is usually pulled out of the glaze dip last and while thin, has the most time to accumulate glaze. As it is at the top of the cup during firing, it also is the first to have the glaze run. The sort of metallic shades to the rim on this cup is due to the glaze running and collecting the black underglaze. This has given it an interesting sheen. Though this is an easy way of treating the rim and makes a good visual border, I won't be using thick bands of underglaze like this again.

Fishies results

A short post about the creation of this item can be found here. I'm really happy with how this green turned out! These fish are lovely. There's a little bit of movement due to the transparent green glaze being so mobile but it's still turned out nicely.

Not-a-globe but still green

Finished - green glaze conical cup with black underglaze in the style of 12-13th century Iran.

I've been focusing on achieving balance in my underglaze pieces recently. It is an interesting challenge to even out the light and dark space as well as the thick and thin lines. I was intrigued by this extant cup (below) as it has so much black yet still achieves a balanced finished look. I wondered if I could replicate it and if the lighter green I've been using will still do it justice.

Left: black underglaze. Sketched in 8B pencil then hand painted. Right: Extant cup, 12-13th century, Iran. Harvard Art Museum. Item 1936.48.

Even though the green ran a little, I'm pretty happy with how close to the extant item the colour is. The cup probably needs to be a tighter cone shape with slightly thicker walls. This unfortunately deformed a little in the kiln losing it's pleasing circular shape. It's still viable just not as perfect. A solid 7/10 in my opinion.