Dish, Dine, Paint & Wine

This month we will be painting these sweet "Ribbon Platters" at Dish, Dine, Paint & Wine. October 8th at 6 pm

It is so fun, anyone can do it!  Pre-registration required, call the studio at (530)550-7822

Paint Your Own Pottery

In preperation of offering Paint Your Own Pottery at T Pots Pottery, I recently dragged my friend, Teresa with me to learn the ins and outs of paint your own pottery.    I figured we would stay an hour or so... 2 1/2 hours later, we left with smiles on our faces.  What a blast!

Jean, owner of Clay Canvas in Reno, NV was fantastic, showing us all the fun techniques in her arsenal. 
We painted, dripped, blew bubbles and stamped glaze on our pieces.

 

Teresa's creative masterpiece!  I love the grapes.

 

Mine is a little goofy.... I wanted to try everything Jean could throw at us.

Right now I have about 20 glaze colors and 15 different bisque pottery items to paint, more is on the way.  I hope to get it all on the website soon. 

Happy Painting, Teresa

Colored Slip Decoration

Yesterday was a terrible day in the studio.... just one of those days where nothing went as planned.  I could not even throw.  Today was fun, I eased into the day by mixing up some batches of thick slip for decorating.

Slip is just a fancy word for way watered down clay to the point of being a thick liquid.  My goal is to have colored slip stored in small, airtight containers for painting on pottery.  Since ingredients for slip (and glaze) and based upon dry weight in grams, I had been saving scraps and letting the clay dry to "bone dry" and brittle.  I mixed 8 small (100g) test batches today using oxides and stains. 

Stains are put on pottery while the clay is still wet so the clay in the slip shrinks with the piece.  The B-Mix we use in the studio shrinks 12%.  Above is a picture of the test piece I made today using the slips.  Once dry, it goes in the kiln for the bisque fire, a clear glaze will be applied over the entire surface then back to the kiln for the second glaze firing. 

A picture of the results along with details of which oxides and how much were used will be posted after it comes out of the kiln.

Teresa

Way to much glaze

Of all the steps, glazing can be the trickiest in making pottery. 

"Ocean" glaze on colander made by a Drop-In potter

Color can make or break a piece.  Each glaze seems to have its own personality, some are runny, some like a thin application while others need to be thicker and others look best with a very even thickness.  My favorite glazes "break" on texture, those which are one color where then and another where thick.

Too much glaze- no matter it's charactorists, is NOT a good thing. 

 Glaze was applied to thick- it ran right off the colander during firing, welding the piece to the kiln shelf.

A good rule of thumb- glaze should be the thickness of a postcard after application and before firing.

Happy Glazing!  Teresa

Navajo Wheel Clay (Red Clay) by IMCO

Yep, the rumor is true.  T Pots Pottery now stocks a red clay called Navajo Wheel by IMCO.

We tested the clay for a few weeks, everyone who threw with it, really enjoyed the smooth, creamy feel and loved the deep, rich color.  Testers felt the clay was easy to center and throw with, so easy, may found themselves with the top portion of their pot suddenly unattached to the wheel and in their hands at the end of a "pull".  Using less water than with the white clay (B-Mix) really helped with the "flimsiness" feeling of the clay.

I found the clay to be easy to throw, softer than B-mix.  Navajo Wheel is much less tempermental in respect to attaching handles and "S" cracks.  A few pieces were intentially left with a thick, uncompressed bottom and left to dry right side up.  - no "s" cracks.  Handles stay put, even with slightly dry clay.

Navajo Wheel on the left, B-Mix on the right= same glaze on both

The best part is the clay will wash out of clothing!  The shrink rate is 15%, a little more than b-mix at 12%.  so far the studio glazes all have a nice fit with no crazing and they look gorgous on the darker clay.

I'll add updates about the clay as they come out of the kiln.

Happy Holidays

Teresa 

New Pottery Studio Pics

Two Sinks! Working room which is home to the wheels, extruder, slab roller and tons of misc. tools
The studio is split into 3 room. This picture is taken from the back room (glaze, kiln, drying shelves) through the middle working room into the front gallery area.

What is Raku

Raku is a blast! Raku is a pottery firing process where pots are lifted out of the really hot kiln with long tongs just after the glaze has melted and before the pots or kiln cool. The pots are still glowing red when they are placed into a metal container with a combustible material (newspaper, pine needles, sawdust, etc.). The combustible material quickly catches fire and a lid is placed on top to snuff out the oxygen. The fire and pots in the container are starved for oxygen and try to pull it from the glaze, this lack of O2 results in beautiful pieces of pottery. These pots do not hold water and are not safe for food.

Test Tiles- Done!

There are over 325 glaze color choices at T Pots Pottery!




Thanks to the help of Heather and Cory, the finished tiles are hanging in the studio!




As you can see on the tiles pictures above left- the base color is "E" which according to the chart is Robins Egg. Each ring of tiles are organized with all color combination's for the same base color. Robins Egg in the example above.

Glaze Spray Booth

Spray Booth

"Window Vision"
An example of a piece glazed using the spray booth


With a spray booth I am able to blend colors for very interesting effects which can not be done with dipping the pottery piece into a bucket of glaze.

Stu made this for me using plastic sheeting we had left over from our veggie garden cold boxes. Enough light comes through the clear plastic that I don't need extra lighting inside the booth.

The spray booth is mounted to the wall on normal shelve brackets. I have found clean up when I put some newspaper under the banding wheel.The ceiling of the spray booth has been fitting with a cheap furnace filter vent which is simple to open and clean or replace the bottom filters.

the boxes on top of the spray booth hold a stack of furnuce filters and the bathroom type fan which turns on/off by a switch.

The compressor (sits under the spray booth) is set to 30 psi. I use a critter sprayer and mason jars (you can see two of them to the left of the booth) filled with different color glazes. Wearing a mask while spraying glaze is mandatory!

Glazed Test Tiles

The test tile project is coming along....

Here are about 3/4 of the test tiles. Each is double dipped in two different glaze colors available at T Pots Pottery.

Some of the results are sooooooo yummy!

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Test Tiles- Heather Glazing

Heather has been a busy gal... she has glazed a little over half the test tile combinations.













The glazed tiles above are in the kiln as I write this!

Test Tiles have been bisqued fired

500 + test tiles have dried and been bisque fired. Heather, the glazing queen, glazed 75-100 tiles at drop-in this week. A big shout out to Heather!

Using Foam instead of Wax Resist- update

Call me a creature of habit or set in my ways... I found it much quicker to use hot wax instead of the foam. If the inside of the foot ring is raised, the foam did not remove all of that glaze. Also any of the glazes with red iron oxide love to crawl into the crevices of the foam and stay there.

I did like the very straight glaze line you can get from using the foam.

Glazeing Rules of Thumb

Glazing can be very challenging. Everything from picking colors and combination to how long and where to dip can all be confusing.

Opening the kiln is always very exciting. Sometimes there is also disappointment...

Glaze ran right off the pot onto the kiln shelve

Here are some very basic, tips to use as rule of thumb:

• Wax should be applied to the bottom of the piece as well as 1/4 inch up the side
• Mix the glaze completely before using it
• Re-mix the glaze between dips to ensure it has not begun to settle
• Dip no longer than 3 seconds on the first dip and less on the second
• Hold the piece upside down for the drips to fall back into the glaze bucket, this also pools the glaze towards the top rim of the piece instead of the bottom where it is more likely to run off the pot.
  
• Glaze should be the thickness of a postcard
• Using more than 3 colors on a piece can create stunning results or ugly browns and greens
• Use extreme caution double dipping the bottom 1/2 of the piece if using a runny glaze
• To minimize finger prints on the finished piece, wait until the piece is dry before handling (no longer shinny and without darker spots)
  
• Clean all glaze off waxed areas, from the bottom and 1/4 up the side of the piece.

Test Tile Extruder die

Here is the die I made to extrude test tile. Notice there are two cutouts, not only is it easier to push the clay out, it is twice as fast! The edges are not straight on purpose (really)the rough edge makes nice texture so we can see what the glaze will do.

It works great, I have over 450 waiting to go into the next bisque load.

Glaze Chemical Storage

I'm so lucky to have such a talented husband!

Shown is the chemical storage and glaze mixing area. Stu made the unit from scrap steel. He then used drawer slides for the shelves.


Each bin (rubbermaid ones I found on sale) is it's own shelve which pulls out for easy access.
The shelves about the work area contain oxides and colorants. Most of the containers are from the Dollar Store. The "disposable" ones from the grocery store also work well.

I like the digital postage type scale the best. I do use the triple bean for measureing small amounts, like 100 g test batches.

Glaze Test Tiles

Seems that everyone who glazes at the studio wants to know what colors look like together. I just counted glaze buckets- there are 19 colors to choose from that means there are over 360 possible combinations... no wonder people get overwhelmed choosing glaze colors!

So, I have started the task of making test tiles.

The first time I made 'em, I used the extruder to push out 6 sided hallow forms then cut them 3" tall. The tiles were easy to make and showed the color well but, they take up a lot of space.

Currently, I throw a 10" wide bottomless cylinder about 3" tall with marks on one side for texture. Easy enough to throw yet, often times, it dries to much before I cut out the pieces.

So, the newest plan is to make a 3 inch "L" shaped die with built in texture for the extruder. All I will have to do is cut it every 1 1/2 inch. and put a hanging hole in the top.

I'll keep you posted with the progress!

Using Foam instead of Wax Resist

Chris, a potter from New Jersey, has been frequenting drop-in the past few months while he is staying with his sister in Truckee. He showed me how he learned to use a foam pad (consistency of a sponge) to wipe the bottoms of pieces on after glazing.

The idea is to glaze a piece, once the glaze is dry enough to lift with your hands, you push down and twist the piece back and forth on a moist piece of foam. The friction, caused by pushing and twisting, removes the glaze on bottom and up the side a little ways.

First we tried a fairly stiff piece of foam I had laying around the studio, it worked pretty well. Being it is on the stiff side, it only removed glaze about 1/8" up from the bottom. I love the straight line where the glaze has been removed. But, I want a little more clearance since many of my glazes can run and with drop-in pottery nights there are so many people using the glazes who are not failure with them.

Last night at drop-in, we tried foam from Wal-mart which is used for seat cushions. It is much easier to push down on but, does not remove the glaze as well. Some of the "testers" last night commented it took longer to then sponge off the glaze than dipping in hot wax.

I'll keep you posted on the results- last nights glaze pieces are in the kiln as I write this.

Let me know if you have tried something similar or other alternatives to using wax!

New Glaze Color

New Glaze color needs a name!!!! any suggestions?

Based on a receipe in Mastering Glazes Cone 6- this glossy brown glaze actually has a varigated tanish grey color where thick with tans and rusty browns where thinner.

As with all my other glazes- this one is lead free. It is food safe and can go in the oven, microwave and dishwasher.

Can you guess what this piece of pottery is used for? (other than glaze testing) :)

It is a sponge holder! The sponge fits in length wise so it can dry out between uses. Helps keep down on the smelly sponge syndrome.