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 ca...

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

Today I took part in Dyson Creativity Day organized by Design Hob and Dyson in Tullamore. We were given a task to design futuristic objects that will fit the life in 20 years. It was a good experience as we had a chance to work in small groups of complete strangers. We also had to work fast, the total time was about 5 hours. Here are some of the groups and their ideas:                                                                                                                 And the winners :

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.