Lucky me - look what arrived this morning in the post, thank you so much Hannah, why doesn't it work in my hands like it does in yours? As Ron would say, 'practice, practice, practice!'
12" dinner plates today, they'll hold a few potatoes - more of them to make tomorrow. I need to get the main components of the dinner service finished this week so that I can move on to the other things I need to make. Firing date's set for 11th October, so the pressure's on.
I got some of the clay from the woods mixed into a slip today. I'm going to pinch the kitchen sieve tomorrow to get rid of the worst of the stones and roots(hope Hil doesn't read this). My plan is to be using this clay for as much production as possible by Christmas if I can get the processing sorted out effectively. All these plans - well, only time will tell.
I'm really enjoying my walks home, there's lots of Toadflax around at the moment - I hadn't realised just how much my head benefits from the exercise.
5 comments:
Doug,
That will be nice clay. The samples we looked at when we visited were nice. But I'll miss that lively, open, somewhat coarse body you've been using. I think it goes well with that treaclly(?) glaze of yours.
Regarding walking, I started walking 3.5 K per day, every day a few months ago. I really look forward to it in a way that I could never look forward to the gym. It's also easy to fit into my trips to work, friends houses, etc. Pity I 'wasted' all that money on that yearly public transport pass. ;-(
It is really good for the head and the heart isn't it? I don't own any waterproof clothes which is a bit silly, maybe I need to sort that out.
I've been making some enquiries about a local source of sand that I can add to the clay. it'll take a bit of experimentation to get the right colour and texture I think, but worthy of the effort. Have you heard how Ruth is getting on back in the States? When you both came to mine, she pinched a tiny little pot out of the woodland clay and I've since fired it, so I have a RB in my workshop, albeit only half an inch in diameter!
Hey I went and looked at those kiln building photos after we got off Skype. It looks like that kiln was soft brick on the inside with common red brick on the exterior. Some fiber in between the two. That looks like a good plan. That kiln looks really snug to get into though to load. How big of a diameter would you go for?? How about stacking height? Am I asking too many questions? :-)
I am thinking about building a bottle too. Just thoughts though. There is a guy here that fires a bottle kiln all the time. He is from NY and he gets great results. Do you have skype because I have been using it here like mad to contact my folks. We should get on and talk some pottery some time soon.
Those walks home really are so good. I am glad to hear you are still enjoying them.
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