Hi everyone! I hope you have all been doing well! As I’m writing this, we’ve made it through the first two weeks of the fall semester! I’ve already been working on a lot of the ceramics projects I had in mind and am super excited to show you all a bit of what I’ve been up to!
First, I got back to throwing as quickly as possible because I just wanted to get the feel for things again before I started working on my ideas. I threw a couple of random vases and bowls, large and small. I turned one of the vases into a lantern-style tea light holder, and it’s super cute. I’ll give you a peek.
Then, I’ve been wanting to make a lamp base that was thrown on the wheel but altered to look like a lighthouse. I bought the lamp kit last semester, but I never got around to making it. Finally, I just decided to give it a try for my first project this semester. I wanted the lamp to be really tall, so I didn’t try to make it in one piece. I threw two cylinders and attached them. But now, I’m in a place where I actually really like what it looks like on its own.
When I trimmed the base, I added slip all over the cylinder’s surface, and it looks like spackle on a wall. I think the texture is super neat as is, and it would be cool to put on a glaze that reacts to breaks in the clay on top. However, if I want to make it into the lighthouse base, I would want to put a porcelain slip over the surface, which would cover the spackle texture that I love. So, right now I haven’t decided what I want to do, and the base is just sitting in my studio. But I can always make another base and buy another lamp kit, so I’m leaning toward keeping it as is and making another lamp that I can turn into the lighthouse I envisioned. That way, I can do some more experimenting with what I want the texture of the lighthouse base to be.
Mark, my awesome professor, showed me a trick with slip and a blow torch, which produced some pretty cool results too. I like the texture it creates, almost like old decaying paint. Maybe a combination of the spackle look with some areas hit with the blow torch would be a cool look. I’ll have to think on it some more.
Keeping with the lamp theme, I also made a hanging lampshade that I’m excited about. I think it would be better to use porcelain because you can see light through it when it’s thin enough, but I wanted the shade to be structurally sound for my first attempt, so I used the typical red clay. I don’t have a picture to show, but imagine a big bowl with a very tiny foot and a hole through the bottom. That’s just about what it looks like. I don’t know what I’ll glaze it with yet. I have to make sure the light cord I got even fits first!
Finally, I got some new white clay for the semester to try. It doesn’t have grog, and it’s cone 6 clay, which means I have to mix up my own glazes because the studio uses all cone 10 glazes. Both fun and nerve-wracking experimenting will go on there. I have a lot of glaze mixing to do in general for both my cone 10 clay and cone 6 clay. I’ll have to make a whole day of it! Anyways, with the white clay, I mostly want to make things I’ll use underglaze on. Using underglaze on the white clay will be exponentially better than on the red clay, so I’m excited to try it. The first thing I made with the white clay was a couple of really bad pots (I’m not used to the grogless clay), but also some ornaments. I wanted to make a couple before Christmas came around, so I’m starting on them early. I’m making them flat, so they’re easier to paint, with a hole at the top for a string. I’m thinking I’ll paint things that remind me of home, like sand dollars and seashells, things in that realm. I haven’t taken pictures of what they look like yet, but I’ll show you all soon!
If you couldn’t tell, I’ve been loving being back in the studio! I have a lot of work to do, and I’m so excited about it all. Hopefully I’ll have some more exciting updates for you all soon. Thank you so much for reading, and stay creative 🙂
-Jenna