New to the family of porcelain and home clay

Family of three, latest is top left.
This is the latest of my free form bowls with porcelain 5 clay mixed/layered with my home clays, biggest so far at about 12" across. No glaze or glass this time just natural colors of clay.

Clays were hand folded many times together and rolled to sheet before hand forming the bowl and exposing the rim textures and some carving. Fired at cone 5.

New Stuff, different direction exploring

P5 clay with transparent glazes, a little more finished than usual for me.

Leaves and Gray

This is a great season to be outside with a camera. Parking lot with a moldy concrete wall gives that opportunity for seasonal contrasts.

If I only had the talent

Saw this on the way to office this morning, It is JUST a rock in with a bunch of old past prime roses and weeds! I would give ...to be able to create this in clay!!!

New Mixed Clay Vessels From Cone 5

New developments from porcelain 5 and home clays: free form vessel whose side walls I have tried to give feelings from looking at the photos I see of the national park canyon walls of water and stone textured thru the ages. No glaze but...

Inside the vessel is a reflecting glass pond.
The second Vessel is same clay but only surface treated with home clay complete with rocks...
And glass reflecting pool

More Photos

Flowers from the market, first a straight crop of large basket of flowers. Second is same shot on the dark side of Photoshop editing. I like them both for different reasons.

A litttle photo work

I haven't posted any photography work lately, so... A little shot I did of a wall of brick with vines and accented the textures, of course, in Photoshop.

New Class, new directions

Great new class with Julie at Clayworks. I told her I was not into the wheel now and she shared a great book that inspired me to this new handbuilt form with P5 clay. I have a second similar form with my mixing fun with 50% P5 and 50% home clay yellow. More of a purposeful cracking surfaces and breaking the edges-"grunge" pottery... More on that later.

Picture not great, cell phone pict. sorry.

Cone 10 Kiln opening for bottle and vase

Got my procelain and home clay-gray back today. great surface texture, no glaze.

Also got the blended clay, with course slice cut sides, outside with some iron oxide and glazed the inside with white.

New fire for the home clay mix

Got back some new gas fire this weekend. This is a 50:50 blend of home clay, yellow with porcelain, cone 10 with white inside glaze. Outside is no glaze.

This detail shot shows some of the rock (center upper left) intentionally left in the clay for texture, did not burn out...no attempt to fully blend the clays, wonderful heavy textured/marbled hand built piece.
Small vessel with clay mix and slurry of porcelain on surface and some texture added, black glaze 90% wiped clean on surface and clear inside glaze

New texture vessels

Latest batch of my home gray clay with 50% cone 10 porcelain clay this weekend.

Details of the texture and surface cracks thru the porcelain and swirled with the porcelain showing the home grainy gray clay.

new mixed clay adventures

Been kind of slow (hot) this summer in my mixed home clay adventures. Here are some cone 10 results.

Above vessel is a mix of 50 50 porcelain and home clay very loose blend to create the marble look with shino inside.
Above is a 1/3 home clay, 1/3 craggy c.,1/3 porcellain pinch pot with porcelain slip on front, some iron oxide hand rubbed over vessel
Above texture slab is a home clay slab with some porcelain slip and several other surface treatments.

Last night with clay mix

Last night I mixed up a new batch of my home gray clay after ageing for 6-8 weeks with 50% cone 10 porcelain clay. Vessel hand built to See what happens next week in firing. fingers crossed!
Detail of opposite side.

This was one I picked up yesterday, mixture of yellow home clay with 50% porcelain, fired with iron oxide outside and white glaze brushed inside. cone 5

Raku and sculpture results

My second ever Raku, step in right direction. Thanks to class partners who took out for me!
A little detail of one side. Again as my theme: texture and experiment.
Here is a better sculpture photo I took today from gas firing several weeks ago.

Home clay and more

A request from my kids to make shot glasses, made this morning from porcelain.
Home clay fired at cone 10 , this test tile will be a start of others. (see below) added a slip of brick clay and copper and iron oxide too.

This home clay tile has a 1/3 home clay,1/3 cragyc= c., 1/3 porcelain, with brick slip and heavy porcelain slip at bottom edge. Will add more texture stuff after bisk fire.

Same clay mix as above with porcelain on surface.

Had a spare old bookcase become available so, made a ceramics show and tell at my office. I guess I could say my office is gone to pot... This is maybe 25 to 30% of my stuff. Maybe I need to put a "For Sale" sign up.

Little clay, a little play

Put a little slab bottle together last night with a small brick clay wash at the top

And a little spider web photo and abstraction fun from a weekend shot. click to enlarge.

"it is just dirt"

Quote from Julie, my first pottery instructor, "It is just dirt."  That is sooo right.  Spent some time last night making some home experimental clay mixture, by first screeding the dry clay/dirt thru a double screen to get the roots and rocks out before making a workable texture, see my earlier blogs . Did about 15 to 20 lbs. It fires cone 10 to dark rich color.

New stuff from the Gas

This is a new departure from my small experimental stuff, sculpture.  I tried to produce out of texture and a little color glaze an interesting piece, What it means to me and you...?

The blue is from a blue glaze with addition of clear and yellow glass, which was designed to melt and flow into the interior of the piece, It is glazed inside as well. The glass formed a great little "pond" on the inside of the base when you can get the sun just right to see into it. Very geode like.  The hole is filled with glass/glaze now but light can still be seen coming thru.
This is a experimental clay Ive been working with, the glaze in the interior is great, I think. I just hope I can do it again.  The pinch pot outside is just iron oxide except for the rim to express the rough texture of the clay body and the clay itself. 

Some photo work

As anyone who knows me from Clayworks know I am a texture nut.  Well it follows me in my photo playing around as I develop 2d textures from photos I take.  This photoshoped image, believe it or not came from the next image.  Sometime in the future this abstract photography will be a part of my 3d clay adventures as well....somehow.
This is the original image shightly adjusted in Photoshop. 

A flower for the weekend

For the guys and gals who enjoy flowers as much as I... just a little beauty I captured last Sat. morning. And some snaps too.

My day job.

Took this photo this week, as the contractor just finished construction on this office retail building in Mint Hill.  As an architect I mainly design churches but this was a three phase small commercial project that gave me a nice departure of building types. Need a place to RENT!