Following my sketched out designs for my final pieces, this time round I found I was struggling with handling the clay. I was talking to Andy about this following the firing of my pieces and he explained how porcelain is a really difficult clay to handle, as its qualities make it very delicate. If it's stretched or creased at all, the clays structure has a memory which reverts back to this and can result in it easily cracking or warping at any time between the raw dry clay pre-biscuit firing, to post glaze-firing. It's so interesting learning about the qualities and 'characteristics' of the materials I'm using, as well as the pieces I can produce with them.
A lot of the porcelain i rolled out ended up in the scraps bucket for porcelain slip, partly for being rolled out too thin and I'm not sure if the weather had anything to do with drying the clay out too quickly as well... annoying, but at least it will be recycled!
I played around with some more handles, this time with porcelain rather than the porcelain and paper pulp I had used before. They felt a little more sturdy and after being wary of how delicate the clay is I think I managed it quite well. I tried out varying shapes and styles of handle, also managed a much cleaner finish this time compared to the research pieces, a vast improvement!
With left over bits of porcelain, I started playing around and manipulating the clay, testing the idea of its handling qualities. With the nature of these pieces, I had a copper oxide in mind to test out the black/green finish of the oxide.
My selection of potential final pieces, pre-biscuit fire...
After the biscuit fire, there were a few cracks starting to show, Andy helped me attempt to secure a few by filling some of the gaps with thickened glaze.
Also the ceramics quite obviously warped in this firing, which if I'm honest I don't really mind; they're still functional objects and still look absolutely fine, if anything, it just adds an extra touch to the handmade essence of the pieces.
My final collection covered in latex panels, spots and patches to help protect the plain porcelain areas for a cleaner finish.
All covered in oxide and glaze ready for their final fire!
And a last minute fatality :( The handle fell off as I was cleaning the glaze off the bottom, which made me drop it on its side... Damn! I still stuck it in for the final firing, and Andy said he'd attempt to fix it together for me.
The pieces warped a little more on their second glaze, resulting in some quirky, not-so-circular shapes! I really love this quality to the clay as they give a much more hand made feel than a generic 'mug' or pot shape.
My little experimental pieces turned out better than I hoped, the touch of green shining through the black copper oxide is really beautiful, I can't wait to play around with this later on in my work when I return to ceramics.
Although the final pieces turned out on the whole a great success, they aren't flawless as there's a few cracks visible, so they still need to be handled with care.
Andy's attempts of saving my broken big mug were pretty good! It's obviously not usable, but the style and effect intended can still be appreciated.
My full fired pieces, round 2...
And my final 6 pieces:
