Mint

Remember when I said I was going to take a ceramics class? Well, I did it (here), and I loved it. For some reason I have a sense of abandon when I work on ceramics. I don’t care if I’m making something I’ve seen a hundred times before, and I don’t care as much what it looks like when it comes out of the kiln. As a beginner, I find there is very little control over the whole process. There are many steps, and therefore lots of places where you can have happy (or unhappy) accidents. Instead of finding this frustrating I find it freeing. Every move is an experiment and you have to just enjoy the process rather than the product.

By my second session of classes I found a process that I really enjoyed. I was inspired by Andrea Yates and Diana Fayt, and although I was enrolled in wheel throwing classes, I like the rough-around-the-edges look of handbuilding. Since my wheel throwing skills are pretty questionable, I’d throw a form but then do a little altering off wheel.

Now that I have some finished products I thought I’d share them here, and tell a bit about my process!

I brought some photos of Diana Fayt’s work to class and my teachers helped me figure out how I might emulate her razor-thin line drawings. For those of you who know something about ceramics (or wish you did), here’s how I did it:

First, make the shape and let it dry slightly. If you want to have a stripe of color (like the yellow), then you need to apply slip. Slip is basically colored clay, and I applied it with a brush. Once the clay is leather-hard and the slip is dry, scratch a design into your form. I found razor blades work best, but if you like a thicker line, try using a dull pencil. Then your form needs to be bisqued. Bisque firing is what you do to ceramics after the form is finished but before a glaze is applied.

After the bisque firing, I used underglaze to make the drawn lines turn black. (I bought the underglaze at an art supply store, but you can find it online, too.) I applied the underglaze with a flat sponge to the entire surface, and then buffed it off with a clean, wet, foam brush so that the underglaze stayed only in the cracks of my drawing. Once the underglaze is rubbed off and your ceramic piece has dried completely, you can cover it with a clear or transluscent glaze. Since I used white clay, I used a clear glaze on top. Then do the final firing, and the piece is finished!  It sounds complicated, it’s not so bad.

These two above were inspired by Andrea Yates. Andrea was nice enough to answer my questions about her process, and I emulated it the best I could. These were done with an underglaze pencil, which looks exactly like a normal pencil but the drawing won’t come off in the firing process. To do this, you take a piece that has been bisque fired, draw with your underglaze pencil, and cover with a clear glaze.

The piece above was the least complicated of them all. I simply stuck glass beads into the wet clay to make those pinkish dots you see, and bisqued as usual. (Be very careful – sometimes glass beads “run” more than you’d think, and may cause your piece to stick to the kiln shelf.) Once the piece was bisqued I applied a clear shiny glaze, and that was it!

So are you ready to sign up for a pottery class?!