Ceramics Update

Time's been short recently with lots and lots going on... So here's a few images from my latest ceramics days to catch up...

Shrinkage:

As my first big batch came out following their glazes, I found the mugs had shrunk considerably more than what I expected. So to remind myself, I took a handful of photos to demonstrate the change 2 firings can bring.

Original casting mold, with final fired and glazed piece:

Graduation of firing: from L-R - cast of original mold, first firing, 2nd firing + glaze.

My first batch of glazed pieces:
I didn't feel confident about these at all... the glazes were really unsuccessful, there were several cracks that developed in the first firing and most annoyingly, the results were not what I expected or wanted at all. (The glazes acted odd and didn't fuse to the insides of the mugs, instead formed big, lumpy, ugly messes in the bottom!)

Second test pieces:
The results here were much more consistent after a few tweaks to the glaze recipes. I carried on working with some oxides of titanium and ochre to add some details, unfortunately they still haven't come out as strong as I intended.

The finals:
I've made a few tweaks to the surface design to combat the flat finish a lot of the pieces have had so far. I've layered on a simple texture using an avacado skin cast, which hopefully brings out a little depth in the glaze due to the variation of clay, as all my previous pieces have been fairly smooth and flat. Firing this weekend and I can access these on Tuesday morning. (To hopefully glaze and fire to come out before Thursday at 4pm!!!!)