Monday, December 6, 2010

Drink Set

Remember these? The cups from awhile back? Well they have finally been fired.

Four cups and one small pitcher makes the set.
Bizen clay with an accent red color. RF firing.

I made the group with two sets of different sized cups. Two tall cups, maybe for hot sake, and two short cups maybe for iced sake.




Here is the biggest piece, the pitcher. It holds about 250mm of liquid. Perfect for nihonshu or shochu (both are types of Japanese sake) The red brush strokes stand out a lot on this piece.

Having a something like this in your kitchen is pretty convenient. You can use it for many things besides sake. It's useful for when you're cooking, adding liquids into a pan, serving gravy or sauces at the dinner table, or storing extra juice or tea.



Here are the two tall cups, as you can tell, they're not perfectly symmetrical. I did that on purpose since I think it's more interesting to have a matching but yet non matching set instead of all the all same thing. You can buy the same shapes at normal stores, but it's harder to find the same series with different shapes and sizes. I guess I'm going for a one of a kind type of thing.
If you're not a big sake fan, they could be small flower vases :)



Here are the shorter two. Besides sake, these cups could also be used for tea.











Here is a close up of the coloring. I love L glaze since it has this beautiful cracking. The color is also mild and easy on the eyes. It goes well with bizen clay and this red accent under glaze.

An interesting thing about finished pieces like this is when you take them home they have to adjust to the temperature and humidity. So The glaze will crack according to the environment it's in. The cracking makes a beautiful sounds too, a light "ping" sound which is actually the glaze settling into the piece.

Another cool fact is bigger pieces will continue to "ping" occasionally here and there for many months, sometimes years. The big turtle I made will still occasional "ping," especially when the seasons are changing. Pretty neat :D

Until next time!

1 comment:

  1. Wow.....never heard of that pinging thing.
    Very interesting. : )

    ReplyDelete