This week was a great challenge for me... I had tried to build my units out of porcelain, paperclay and finally fibreclay. In the beginning nothing worked - the curvy strips were getting straight when they dried or they weren't strong enough to build with them. Even now I still don't know how they will turn out after firing. Porcelain moves a lot in the kiln and I like it but this time I have to find a way to compromise it's desire to move with my idea of form I would like to achieve. Here are some of my test from this week. I am planning to fire them on Friday so the results will be on Monday. Please keep your fingers crossed for me :) This are just porcelain tests the middle one was a W and that's what is left of it after few hours. The last piece and the cylinder probably will collapse in the kiln... Well we'll see :) Now that's paperclay. As you can see on the bottom photo it also went flat after joining two pieces. I really hope the middle...

I still don't know exactly how my finished pieces are going to look like but I know that I want to make something light and translucent. That is why I had decided to work in porcelain.  Some of the forms can be too difficult to construct in porcelain without risking that they will collaps in the kiln.  In order to overcome this obstacle I had prepared some paperclay which is lighter and hopefully will keep the shape better.  First I cut porcelain in small pieces and let them get bone dry. Then I crushed them even more and added water to make smooth slip. When I had porcelain slip prepared I teared up some toilet paper and soaked it in hot water. After some time I sieved it and mixed with porcelain slip.

Finally I have made some moulds for this project. Mould making isn't my strongest skill and to be honest I don't like it at all, I just like using moulds :) I had used the models that I have made earlier and here are photos of some of the results.

Here are some photos from Lodz Design Festival.  

The last week was quite hard for me as I got stuck with my project and wasn't sure which direction I should go. I wanted to do something in clay that will reflect my plastic models but then I felt that I should do something different. As usual in this type of situation I spent hours just looking at what was straight in front of my nose and kept asking myself ' What to do next?? And how to do it??' I finally have made few pinch pots - will add photos next week when I'll get back home. When I was making them I have realised that it's not what I want to do but will use them anyway - you never know where the next idea is going to come from. Last few days I was stragling with making moulds- I don't like making them but I know I need them :). I spent two days trying to get around mould-making but in the end was forced to do it. So far I have prepared  some plaster models. I am in Poland now, just for the week and will post some info about International...