morgaina | Tuesday through Friday work

I'm having a good time in the studio this week. Although I have got a little done,it is a constant struggle trying to keep the studio warm and that is taking up a percentage of my productive time and physical energy.
It's been a while since I have been to a city to buy clay so am getting it from a regional neighbor. This is good because he is a friend, an entrepreneur, and it is local clay. But the clay is....short. Thus it takes a lot more effort to get the shapes I want than a fatter clay like B-Mix does and it's much more difficult to get any kind of height.

I have several of the "Lark 500" series of craft books. I've found it interesting that so many of the pitchers in the "500 Pitchers" are jug styles from the high Medieval era. My own jugs (hur) are beginning to feel blurred between modern and medieval.

The tallest jug in this set is 12" tall.

Trying different things with the feet.

The photo is somewhat misleading the bowl on the right is about a 3qt capacity and those on the left are soup bowl size.

The tallest goblet is 9" tall, the shortest goblet is around 7" tall. I have a commission for 2 Communion sets, one is supposed to be considerably larger than the other set. There is a reason but I don't remember why.

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*giggles* I'm in lurve with your jugs!!!

Hahahahhahah!

Heh, my evening is improving ;-)

What does short clay and fat clay mean?

Those are wonderful shapes. One of things I really like about seeing new pottery pieces is that one can really focus on the graceful lines of the pieces without distraction. Of course, the design and glazes are yummy too.

It means teh differance between very plastic, and not very plastic. "short " and "long' are terms for the same.
Sorry good Mistress..I couldnrt help myself. 8-)

I don't know know what plastic means in this context either.

Sorry..my bad. It means that the clay is easily pushed into a new form, and it holds that from. Short clay, on teh ohter hand, is resistant to assuming new shapes, and hard to form into those shapes.
I hope this helps...and if I can help in any onter way regarding clay, I will do my best.

Clear as Mud. (I was hoping to use that line ;-))

And there you go! Very appropriate, too! LOL!
(thsi si turning into REALLY fun evening! 8-)
Its fun to see pottery/clay humor!

Short clay is also known as %$^#&# clay ;-)

LOL!!! ROFLMAO!!!!
yep! Yep!
thanx dear friend! I loved that! made my day!

Yep, that's what I calls it too.

Thanks, :-)
What all surface decoration should do is enhance the shape of the pot. Too complicated a glaze or carving defeats the purpose of having it on a pot at all.

Short clay is not "plastic" that is it doesn't allow itself to be molded into some shapes without cracking (while still wet) the way dirt would crack if it was molded into a coil & circled.

Fat clay is plastic, it can be molded into all kinds of complicated shapes without cracking.

A clay is short or fat depending upon the different clays that are mixed together to make the final clay. Aging also helps make the clay more plastic.

Chinese potters used to mix clay for their grandchildren, store it, and use the clay their grandfathers had mixed for them.

Welcome to the world of blurriness. 8-) Ill say, your pots are a lot cleaner than many Period ones.

I like how you attached the upper end of the handles on the jugs in the foreground. I might try that on my next handle.

Thank you.
Most of the handles on these pots were pulled off the pots themselves. I like the grace of the slightly downward curve on these.

How do you pull a handle off a pot? Do you attach a blob of clay then start pulling? That seems pretty risky. Is there an advantage to doing that rather than pulling the handle independantly?

Yeah, that's about it. Pat the clay into a shape like a soft cone, a little shorter & thicker than you use for pulling a handle the regular way. Attach it securely to the place where you want the handle to begin, pull, then attach the other end to the lower part of the pot.

The benefits include taking less time and fuss (you don't have to wait for the pulled handle to dry some before attaching it to the pot). It's less likely to collapse once on the pot, and it's usually more graceful & attractive.
And I don't know about anyone else, but I have dropped waaaay too many pulled handles on the floor.

I've dropped a few and usually wished afterwards I had swept the floor before I got started. I'll try the way you described. How dry should the vessel be - hard leather hard condition?

What is it with those drying pulled handles? Why do they like to leap to their deaths?

Hard enough that it doesn't warp when you pick it up. Just about like the moisture content of a pot you put a handle on the other way too.

Maybe I won't see the cracks I get in the handle as I bend it in a curve if I pull it while on the vessel.

Yummy! You do such lovely work :)

Thanks. This week has been such bliss. But tomorrow I have to go back to earning a living *sigh*

I am loving the bowls and the goblets. I don't see you do too much attached surface decoration, so the bowls are especially intriguing. So lovely!

Also, you have fabulous jugs. Just sayin'. ;)

erk That is an amazing icon picture :-D

Thanks for your comment on the bowls I really have been interested in trying a few new things. It's easy for me to go overboard, so this was a bit of a compromise with myself.

I don't know if I've seen pictures of your stuff before the glaze. Thank you for sharing. They are beautiful. I am hoping to be purchasing some more of your stuff this year as Ivan was hard on some of my favorites during one of his fits. Always a silver lining.

I really like the looks of pots before they are fired, especially after they have been freshly thrown.

Are you looking for modern or medieval pots? As I mentioned though, the line between them is beginning to blur for me.

Oooo! Applied decoration on the bowls. Ain't that fancy? Can't wait to see these in their final forms.

Thanks, I'm planning on using a simple glaze on those.

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Thank you, it was a good week.

Tuesday through Friday work

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Jug handles

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Thanks for the pictures

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