No Time to Photograph Last Decal Firing
Pots waiting patiently for their turn for decal attention
Happy Monday morning everyone! After a making/glazing/decal marathon of the past several weeks, I can now breathe a huge contented sigh enjoyed by stress free people all over the world. Not to worry, I’m sure I’ll repeat my manic potter behavior for the show next fall. Try as I might, I can’t seem to break the cycle of cramming for a show at the last minute. The Colorado Potters Guild Spring Show opened Thursday evening and on Wednesday afternoon, I was still applying decals to my work. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek is all my brain was yelling all day long.
Applying decals to tiny tiny covered box
After my small decal firings, this was by far the most ambitious one yet. I didn’t quite fill my Skutt 1027, but almost did. After taking a deep breath, I buckled down – stopped answering emails, phone calls etc. in preparation for assembly line style decal printing and application.
Decaled work ready to be fired
For some of my work, I had already decided on a design – but for at least half, I sort of made it up as I went along. I looked at the pot trying to decide how to “dress” it, if you will. While decals are without a doubt less labor intensive than hand painting – which was one of my hopes for the process – it is not without a time commitment. It took quite a long time to format the decals on a letter sized sheet of decal paper in order to get the most decals out of one sheet. I used a variety of sources for decals, including royalty free clip art, tweaked digital photographs (my own and royalty free ones – read the fine print though for release info, digital scans of actual leaves and sketches of my art work (thanks Wacom tablet).
First 2 shelves of decal firing look good
By 8pm, I was ready to fire the kiln and instead of doing a slow fire because quite frankly I didn’t have the luxury of time, I programmed a fast fire to cone 04, gave a nod to the kiln goddess, crossed my fingers and hoped that I’d have some work to bring to the Guild’s sale. I was up till almost 1am making sure that the kiln would shut off – I had no idea how long a fast cone 04 firing would take (fyi – about 5 hours).
Next shelf looks good too
By 6am Thursday morning, the kiln was still too hot to touch – but being the gambler that I am, I pulled all the peeps, and cracked the lid ever so slightly. By 8am, the kiln had dropped another 300 degrees – so I propped the lid open wider – and by 10 am I was able to unload. Mind you, I think the kiln goddess was listening to my pleas and I got lucky. In my opinion, pots are best when they’re still warm to the touch, much like melt in your mouth chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven.
Blue butterfly box
I can’t tell you how darn happy I was as I unloaded the kiln! Squeals of joy, jumping up and down – woohoos escaping my lips. My joy was short lived, however when I realized that I only had an hour+ to inventory, price & shower before I had to deliver the work to the show venue at noon on Thursday. I have a few candid shots of my work sitting on my work table and that’s it.
Work waiting to be priced
Luckily, I volunteered to be on the photograph team for the Spring Show – so I did pull out 6 of my better pieces to be photographed. I won’t get those back for several weeks though because another member was taking the photographs and needs to upload and edit all of them. I tried taking some over his shoulder with my camera, but I forgot my tripod at home, so they didn’t turn out so well. I’ll share later in the week.
So, how did our show turn out? I didn’t hear how the group as a whole did, but I personally did very well. I brought 80 pieces and sold 60 – all of my covered boxes sold, along with some new wall tiles, all my mugs, butter dishes, and almost every single one of my new decal pieces. I even sold most of my older work that I had priced attractively and wanted to get rid of because I’m tired of looking at it. I have 6 sets of buttons, some small oblong trays, a couple of misc. pieces, and 3 weed pots left over.
In celebration, I hung out with my family this weekend and didn’t do a whole lot of anything besides going to my daughter’s soccer games, laundry and working in the yard a bit. Today, I head back to the studio – I’m pretty jazzed about my new wall tile boxes.
Have a good week,
~Cynthia
Glazing over-fired bisque
Reglazed stoneware mug cone 6
You might remember that I over-fired a bisque load in my ancient kiln a few weeks ago – the kiln contained work by my after school clay class, but I also slipped in a few of my pieces in the interest of using space wisely. Doh! Anyway, I received a few suggestions about how to salvage the work including glazing it with low fire glazes, doing a cold finish and more. I did the former, but didn’t like it so much, so I decided to try glazing the work to cone 6 again. To do this I placed the empty mug in the microwave on high for 2 minutes until it was almost too hot to handle with my bare hands (but not quite). Immediately, I dipped the mug in a bucket of glaze with a pair of tongs, wiped the bottom off with a sponge and put the mug in the kiln so that I wouldn’t have to handle it again.
Same glaze on a properly bisqued cup
I was pleasantly surprised to open the kiln the next day to find a glazed mug – but there is a catch. The glaze is much paler than its counterpart below that was in the same cone 6 glaze kiln as the mug above. The difference is that the cup in the bottom photograph was bisqued to the proper temperature. It was a good exercise – it shows me that bisqueing to a lower temperature allows more glaze to cling and be absorbed to the bisque ware. I’ve read and been taught that factoid before, but being a visual person and experiencing it first hand really makes it stick. 
Notes: I used the mug one morning and ran it through the dishwasher and used it in the microwave with no ill effects. I won’t be selling the mug either, but am glad that it doesn’t have to end up in my shard pile.
Happy Thursday,
~Cynthia
Ceramic Jewelry Box Part 2
This is a continuation of yesterday’s post highlighting the construction of a custom 2 level ceramic jewelry for Jean. As I mentioned yesterday, I don’t normally enjoy custom orders because it feels too much like homework, but I had already been thinking of making this project before Jean asked – good timing. I should also give you a bit of the back story about how I know Jean before going into more detail. Two years ago, I met Jean virtually via Alyson Stanfield’s online Promote Your Art with Confidence class in which we were both enrolled. After the class ended, a group of us stayed in contact using Google Groups – though I confess, I haven’t been participating very much in the past 3 months. I really appreciate the exchange of ideas that happens between a group of artists that encompasses a variety disciplines.
Paper butterfly cut-out in newsprint
This covered jewelry box is a birthday gift for her sister who really loves butterfly and rabbit imagery. Jean gave me quite a bit of leeway with the design (almost too much), but I did manage to squeeze in a few butterflies (8 to be exact) and I am still thinking about what kind of sculpted bunny knob will be most appropriate.
I used 8 paper butterflies on this box
I decided to use a paper stencil technique – I drew butterfly shapes on newsprint and then placed them on the box in various places. To help the paper butterflies adhere to the box, I spritzed the box and the paper stencils with water. Note: I still have not cut off the lid to the box and will do that today.
I applied 2 coats of colored slip to the exterior
My original thought was to paint underglaze over the entire box, however, when I went into my studio I didn’t have an turquoise colored underglaze. I thought I did, but it was low-fire turquoise glaze – eek! What to do? Last year, I had mixed up some different colored slips using cone 6 porcelain clay scraps and Mason Stains and remembered I had a celadon colored slip in my stash. I used 1 tsp. of French Green and 1 tsp. Robin’s Egg Blue to 2 cups of slip. I painted on 2 coats of slip to the exterior of the box, allowing the 1st coat to dry before painting the final one. Note: It can sometimes be problematic to mix different clay bodies – the jewelry box is constructed using a ^6 white stoneware and the slip is a ^6 porcelain, but, I have already had successful results combining the two clay bodies.
Low fire earthenware tile with paper stencil design
My inspiration for using the paper stencils comes from a project I did with my students last fall who were enrolled in my after school clay class. We made tiles using paper stencils that turned out terrifically. Another cyber friend & potter, Linda Starr also recently experimented with butterfly stencils – only she used pre-made stickers, a technique I love and might borrow someday! I’ll post some pics of the kid’s stenciled tiles when I find them – I think I’ve moved the images to my external hard drive and I’m too lazy to walk to the other room right now.
After pulling the paper butterflies off the box, the raw clay remains underneath the slip
After the slip started drying, the paper butterflies started lifting away from the clay making it very easy to get pretty crisp images. I did take a paint brush and smoothed the edges where the slip meets the raw clay around the butterflies. When the box is bisque fired, the raw clay will be white – not quite as white as porcelain, but pretty darn close.
I even put one on the insert that will nest inside the box
Even the insert is decorated – and I’ll probably paint slip on the interior of the box once I’ve cut the lid off today. I had a flash of inspiration last night while I was editing these photos. While the slip and clay are still wet, I wondered whether Jean would want me to carve a little message to her sister…. Luckily, Jean answers her email pretty quickly and I am indeed going to carve a secret word shared between sisters inside the box for her sis to find. Isn’t that fun???
So, what comes next? Cut the lid off, clean up the edges and interior of the lid today – followed by sculpting a knob and adding feet to the box. Then, the box will dry over the weekend and I’ll bisque and glaze fire it. I plan on using a clear glaze since I’ve already used slip, though I’ll probably use my celadon glaze for the knob – maybe I’ll leave it clear – not sure and that’s a decision to make later. After the box is glaze fired, I will be adding laser toner ceramic butterfly decals to add another finishing layer to the design.
Speaking of decals, I’m firing 2 test pots with decals as I write this. I figured I’d better test it out before firing Jean’s birthday gift to ensure success. I don’t normally operate this way, but I’d hate to disappoint her. I started my decal firing this am at 6:30 in my test kiln – fingers crossed, they turn out perfectly. I’m firing the decals to cone 04 based on a handout Linda Arbuckle has provided on her website (scroll to the very bottom for the ceramic decal one – though there is a ton of other great info on her site to check out) that suggests firing the decals between cone 04 – cone 1 for any work fired to cone 6. It makes sense – the iron oxide in the laser toner will fuse to the glaze at the point when the cone 6 glaze is beginning to flux. Any cooler, and the image may rub off, and any hotter it may burn off.
I’m substitute teaching tomorrow, so I won’t share my results until Saturday – but you know I’m going to peek inside the kiln tomorrow morning. I don’t know if I could wait all day!
~Cynthia
P.S. I have some exciting news to share…
Ceramic Jewelry Box Part 1
Making a domed lid for the jewelry box
I don’t know why I haven’t done this before, but I finally broke away from the square! The idea came to me in a dream – okay, maybe not a dream but a lucid day dream. Then, unexpectedly, I received an email from super talented Texas painter, Jean Levert Hood, who was interested in a custom covered box for her sister’s birthday. Now, I normally don’t do special requests (it’s too much like homework to me), but given her timing, I said, “Sure, as long as I can experiment a bit….”
Box with domed lid before cutting lid off
I set out to create a two level jewelry box that was longer than wide with a domed lid since I liked the square one I made recently. This is white ^6 stoneware and measures 6″w x 5″h (with dome, walls are 4″ hight) x 4″d.
Bottom interior of jewelry box
I like solving design challenges. When I decided to create a 2 tier box, I had to create a support system for the top level of the box since an insert will sit on top of the bottom level. What you don’t see in the photo above are the side supports. I added those after I placed the insert in and found that it wobbled.
The divided tray will form second layer inside the jewelry box
Since I’ve already closed up the box, I don’t have any photos of the 2nd level insert inside the box. I’ll be cutting the lid off today or tomorrow, and will have to give you that view a later day. Initially, I didn’t want to put a divider in the second level, but I found out that I needed something to grab onto to make lifting it out easy.
Jean is really easy going in regards to this project – she did tell me that her sister loves bunnies and butterflies which I am going to incorporate into the design. Then there’s the issue of color - I’d hate to make this purple if her sis hates the color. I am going to use a turquoise under-glaze and will also be using the white of the clay. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one develops – so I had better hop to it!
Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this video. If you keep up with me on Facebook, you may have already seen this one. It makes me laugh, so just in case you need a giggle, here ya go:
Have a good day everyone,
~Cynthia
