Break from the TP

I decided to take a break from the TP aka teapot tonight, refresh my mind and work on something else. I had a lot of pieces piling up that were ready for blazing so I did that for the whole evening. Total of 5 coffee/tea cups, 2 small bowls, 3 large square plates and one round small plate. Which isn't all that much in a three hour period but I did almost every piece in a different glaze so cleaning and mixing each glaze took up most of the time.





Time for the run down...

I'll start with the cups. Far right (top picture) I did K glaze RF firing for two cups (dark gray, bizen clay) To the left is one cup that is half T and S (OF, bizen clay). The bowl next to that is S and the last bowl (far left) is R. (Bowls will all be RF firing, both are white stone shigaraki clay )



On the last two cups I made a design under the glaze. A metallic like red with glaze I, which I don't have a color sample for but it's a bluish white color. Their is a tiny cup between them and that is glaze I (RF) but mind you it's with white shigaraki clay and this is bizen clay so it'll turn out slightly different.







Here's the cups after they were dipped in glaze I. I haven't used I glaze yet so I hope these turn out well :)












Last were my plates, which had to be glazed in a special way: air gun. These were the plates that I carved designs onto. (Bubbles, leaves and a flower) Since I wanted to put melted glass in the grooves I couldn't just dip the plates like everything else today, they had to be sprayed to get a very thin glaze so the craved out areas won't fill up with too much glaze during firing.


Obviously using an air gun is messy business so I had to take it outside. It's pitch black in the middle of a dark park in the mountains so I lugged a big light outside and set up camp. Few stools, some buckets with water, sponge and ladle. Oh and of course air gun.








After a few sprays each plate was finished.



Starting from the front: Bubble plate, bizen clay with U glaze.
Middle leaf plate, bizen clay U glaze. Top plate, flower plate white stone shigaraki with U and J glaze (green color)
















After cleaning up it was time to put the glaze inside the grooves on each plate. Since the grooves were so small I had to smash glass pieces almost to dust and put the pieces in with a tweezers. (Yes, another tedious job haha) If I put too much glass in one spot it will overflow and turn out ugly so putting the right amount of glass is important.













Here is a close up, this is the flower plate with brown glass shards. When the glass melts it should spread out and fill in the grooves. But this is all an experiment so I'm not entirely sure how they'll turn out. Fingers crossed it's well! If not I'll have some plates to use with my demented tea cups :D













Here is the bubble plate. Dark blue glass shards. I didn't have time for the leaf plate. (that'll be this Thurs)



More to come soon!!