This time of year is the scariest time of all... It's essay time... I always fool myself that "this time I will start earlier and will have it done weeks before it's due for the assessment'. But this year is no exception and I was doing everything else but my essay.... Finally today I have dragged myself to the library and start searching for answers. It was quiet and nice and I have done my work for a day when I had found them!! Three great artists who are doing things that for weeks were hatching in my head - I didn't know how to make them real.... I was sad at first. There are people already there doing things I wanted to do and obviously they are way better then I am. There is no place for me in ceramic world, everything what I wanted to do is done!  Then I have realized that every student need a master :) So I am proud to present my Masters and Heroes in ceramics: Porcelain vessel by Jennifer McCurdy http://www.jennifermccurdy.com/ Jean-Francois Fouilhoux

I have took out my last tests from the kiln today and at first I was very disappointed with the results. It took me good few hours to understand that there may be still faults in my models but I have learnt a lot from my last two firings so I should be happy rather then sad. I definitely have to make my next pieces a bit thicker as they break very easily. I have decided to try the same forms in pure porcelain as it looks that when used at good thickness it is light enough and keeps the given shape quite well. I also got an idea for piece that will collapse in the kiln and I think I have gathered enough informations in my tests to 'control' the fall. So over all I am pleased with the results. Now please judge them yourselves : All this pieces worked out quite well, in the future I will need to create more contact between the slabs.  This one broke when I was taking it from the kiln. It is extremely thin and there were cracks before firing so it was doomed from th

I am pretty sure that I am very close to finding a way of making my ideas real. Just have to test few more things :) Here are some of my latest tests: Can't wait to see them fired :)

In the meantime I started to work with fiber-clay made of the casting slip- and this one is even stronger and looks more promising :) First I have prepared the porcelain casting slip which wasn't that hard as I thought it will be. There are just few simply steps to do it: 1. Get a bucket (big one) and put 2l of water 2. Dissolve 26g of dispect in 600ml of HOT water then add to the bucket  3. Cut porcelain in small pieces and put them into the water so they are well covered 4. When you have about 1/4 of a porcelain bag already in the bucket start mixing everything with the big blender :)  5. Add more porcelain to the mixture slowly until it will become nice and smooth. I have mixed the casting slip with nylon fiber ( 1l+ 20g) and then dried it on the plaster bat.                        Simple archers are collapsing a bit but I hope to learn how to controle that. I have noticed that making cylinders works well with my fiber-castingporcelain. I am getting excite

It was a long time since my last entry and lots of things happened. I have the results of the firing of the thrown pieces :  I am happy with the results. They are a bit too chunky but as I told you before I have very little of throwing skills. I got few ideas from this pieces - I think they will be a great wall pieces. I also started to think about simplifying my design and maybe concentrate more on joined arches rather then trying to build bigger structures with them. If I will be able to find out how to make nice 'waves' it will be easier to take it from there and think bigger :) Together with my thrown pieces I have fired similar forms made of paper-clay and fiber- clay. The paper-clay didn't work at all - it went flat as a pancake.... but!  Surprisingly the fiber-clay worked quite well :)                                                                                                Paper-clay test. Didn't work at all, tured up flat.                 

I was advised by my tutors to try different approaches in my tests and maybe get more 'clay' look instead of  plastic. One of the suggestions was to try to throw something on the potters wheel  instead of press-moulding. Let's be straight here I do like to learn to throw but so far I am far from being good at it. I have decided that I will use my lack of experience as a main feature of this bath of work - I made my cylinders wobbly and bumpy. I decided that I would like to cut sections out of my cylinders and see how the temperature will affect the form. The next step was cutting cylinders in halves and assembling them the same way as I did with plastic. The main problem I am dealing with is that when plastic is geven a shape - a bottle ie.- it's keeping it when porcelain wants to get straight no matter what. That's why I am trying to make it remember the circular shape by throwing it. My next step will be casting cylinders with porcelain slip. Before tha

Over all I am quite pleased with the results. My pieces moved slightly in the kiln but I think they look pretty  much the same as in green stage. My next firing will be a test for bigger constructions to see how the things will work when joined together :) Here are few of my results :)  1220 C