aug/sept - just photos 🌱🫖

Conservatory clay grotto

Mug WIP

Ok underglazing is hard?? Practice

My child (marrow)

My child (asparagus)

a poor throwing week

Hello friends-

I'm off work for a little bit for a small break with friends and then a family visit, it's sort of early morning and I don't have the WiFi at my friend's house so I thought I'd give a mini update. 

The title pretty much describes it, the past couple weeks I haven't done much good throwing; a little bit of practice, and a bunch in the reclaim bucket. I wondered if it's a combination of the clay not being in the best condition (still need to learn to wedge), plus the hot weather, plus me being out of practice and I think being less assertive/forceful when centering!

I have had some nice clay related chats recently though and I'm eager to get back to practicing when I get home and when there's a decent window of time available. 

Below is a handful of ok mugs I made, I've only made a handful so far, these were a much more solid blue than I'd hoped as the glaze seemed to have thickened a lot more than expected. I've given these away!

For two of them I hand dipped the pots into the glaze and left finger marks intentionally, but I don't think it works with such a strong and opaque application like this!

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Art wise, I got impatient with Etsy taking forever to delete my account (so I could remake it) and then remembered folksy exists, so I've started a folksy shop. I'll see how it goes, folksy is certainly not as big or well known as Etsy, but it could turn out to be a good thing, and their fees feel a lot more transparent and possibly also are cheaper overall 🤔 

I've also been sketching here and there, nothing remarkable at all, a lot of ugly mud pies. My sketchbook is definitely not an 'aesthetic' thing to show people in a video (like I've seen on other artists' YouTube channels, etc), it's messy and chaotic and a dumping ground for very hastily scribbled ideas, notes and to do list.

early July things

 

I started making mugs! I get closer to my goal of making a giant sports direct dupe mug. My next steps are just continuing to throw mugs, practicing throwing with bigger pieces of clay and learning to make a variety of handle styles, so I can reach the Giant Mug goal. I also eventually want to practice doing more underglazing (basically painting underneath a translucent/transparent glaze, like this black design shown on the mug image above) and on-glaze decorating techniques (painting on top of a glaze, not done it before).

Here's a less successful but still interesting pot. It's not so successful because the wax resist somehow got on the upper area of the pot (the light line near the rim). Also there's some glaze mess on the inside of the pot, because I messed up the glaze application initially and then roughly cleaned it before re applying a different glaze; there was still some residue of the first glaze and instead of combining, somehow the two glazes didn't get along so there's a big unglazed spot on the inside... 

However! I actually find the new glaze itself very interesting colour and texture wise, I'm not usually into blues but this one has a lot of variation within it, so I'll probably try do some more pots with this glaze. I'll see how the next result comes out, I wonder if some of the variation is coming from my haphazard prior glaze dipping and subsequent messy cleaning.

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I have a few more pots that came out of the kiln, none are particularly noteworthy to be honest. I am getting better at throwing bigger, taller things, though. I have put 4 new mugs up for their first kiln firing, so I'm looking forward to see how they get on (fingers crossed the handles stay on).

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In craft news

• I'm continuing to use and destash my yarn!
• I sold/traded a couple jumper weights of handspun yarn that I'd made because I didn't have solid plans on what to make with them, and I have enough works in progress/queued specific projects to get on with.
• I'm working on my dad's cardigan and making good progress. It looks like I'll still have a whole other jumper quantity of yarn even after finishing it though! So I might make myself a cardigan or sell/trade the remainder.
• I did buy a jumper quantity of pale coloured Sandnes Garn peer gynt yarn for a Kosekofte which has been a knitting goal for quite some time. For the colourwork contrast colours I will be using a bunch of handspun and leftover yarn, so it still sort of feels like a win in terms of stash.
• I suppose if there's leftover then I can use the rest for some mittens or other small accessories, or sell the peer gynt yarn.

In game dev/art news

• Continuing to try learn to code and doing a bit of shader and in-engine (Unity) learning at work too. Hit a wall with one of my tutorials so I need to ask someone about that soon.
• Continuing slowly but surely with the dress up pixel artwork.
• Done some watercolour painting recently as well as some general sketchbook drawing which has been fun 😌

early june update 🎡

 

A bowl which I'll trim on Thursday

Some biscuit fired pots - to be glazed

Swiss Darning C's workhorse jumper

June Things

• I actually started learning to code
• It's slooooow but that's understandable. It's a different way of thinking
• I'm doing this so I can make basic prototypes for my ideas
• Namely the dress up game...
• I have been reorganising my office
• Finally going through all my high school and uni art and recycling or putting it away
• Used some sheep fleece from my spinning stash for mulching my courgettes as the fleece, while lovely, was so spiky as the sheep appears to have rolled in thorns. So the prepping and spinning experience was horrible!
• Continuing to attempt to stash down (reduce my knitting stash) to mixed results
• I had a 'commission'/request for a bright orange tea cosy for a friend, so I bought yarn for that - now I have leftover orange yarn! I think I will combine it with other leftovers to make O a scarf for autumn
• I almost finished a triangular shawl for myself but had to order a 20g mini skein to finish it up. I think I'll have leftover from that (when it arrives) so it'll go into O's scarf, too. It's all DK
• I may have also ordered a mystery box of 5 x 20g DK mini skeins which will also be part of O's scarf
• I have been working on my dad's cardigan again so it'll be nice to use up some of the yarn I have lounging around my office for that!
• I have made progress on some socks for C that I've been on for months... still more to go but it's getting there. There will be leftover yarn but I also have some scrappy sock WIP that I can put it into and any remainder can be for darning/repairs!

May Photos 📸🌼

 

Courgette plants

 

Garlic pizza bread

Roses from the garden

Dyeing orange yarn

Hand dyed handspun yarn

Bee on a poppy

Throwing pots

It's May 💮🌸🌼🌻

 Quick check in this May!

Currently Reading: Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson (finally over halfway)
Other Enjoyment: Watching Leena Norms on youtube.

I am overwhelmed with my ongoing textile projects:

1. Jumper for C (90% done)
2. Cardigan for dad (15% done)
3. 200g DK yarn shawl for me (20% done)
4. Draught excluder to be stuffed with non-compostable scraps and clothing waste (1% done)
5. Spinning up a sheep fleece from ~2021-2022 (??% done, working on it bit by bit)

Languishing projects:

1. A dress which just needs a neckline adjustment and bias binding
2. Some trousers needing a new waistband

Projects I want to start:

1. Sewing the pomona pants in some checked or patterned fabric (basically I want some Mabel trousers from Beyond Nine but they are out of my budget and also probably a bit wider than I'd like, anyway
2. Sewing another Rae skirt - a very beginner friendly pattern, I sewed one in checked linen and it's had a lot of mileage

Some pottery progress:

I'm finally able to make cylinders large enough to be [hopefully] decent sized mugs. My dream pottery project is a sports direct sized mug... one day. 

One of the good things about pottery is the pots live at the clay studio, and each item is fairly small as a project, so they don't feel overwhelming like the textiles projects I listed above!

Art Progress

I've done sketching here and there, and I've made progress on that dress up game prototype I mentioned previously; mostly just making the base body image onto which clothes will be added. I also made a start on some clothing as well 😌 And on top of that I started on the Unity junior programmer tutorials.

back at it 🛞🎡

It's the new year 🎊 and it's been an absolute mess already geopolitically, hasn't it?

Aside from that I just wanted to pop by and show that I got back on the pottery wheel yesterday! Questionable pots but I'm happy to have gotten to it and had better luck with centering this time. My centering is still not great and to be honest I'm sure my work wasn't fully centered most of the time, but it's better than it was. 

I'm hoping to do more this year but we'll see if sickness at home allows! Last November and December were dicey. 

quick art, knit and pot update

Edited to add: I think I accidentally published this really late after having written this!

I've done some drawings!

... I can't find all the photos on my phone but here are some...

... And my knitting, I've almost finished an autumnal jumper - just in time for it to no longer be autumn! I'm working on the bottom hem ribbing and then just have the neckline and weaving in ends to do.

Lastly, a quick pottery update. My little guy survived two trips to the kiln!

Secondly, I managed to sculpt on another bust and made a face I was happy with:

And promptly knocked the bust over and smashed in the nose and mouth! So I'll have to go back and redo the face 😭

That's my speedy update. For folks who celebrate during December and new year, have a lovely time (same to those who don't).

little update

Hello friends 👋 

Sorry I've been a bit MIA lately, work has been busier than usual and I have been continuing pots but a bit less frequently - as we have also been hit with illness at home for the past couple of weeks.

I'm doing ok with my end of year goals, I finished the baby hats and my friend's mittens, plus finished off my shawl. I have started another pair of mittens, this time toddler sized, for little one this winter. Hopefully she will wear my knitted items this time!

Here's the first iteration, I started over though with bigger needles to make it a bit fatter width wise so there's more finger space.

Pots wise, I'm still finding centering the hardest aspect of pottery. The left one is very wonky haha but I'm happy with the right hand bowl that I made. 

I have a few more pots getting fired soon hopefully, looking forward to testing out more glazing. I have made enough pots for close family to get some festive gifts and am trying to get a few more sorted out. 

dropping by to share some glazed pots 🍯

Just popping by to share some of the glazed pots, I still have four waiting to be fired as well!

These are some from the throwing class I posted about previously. I've been experimenting with different glazes and underglaze and cobalt carbonate (the blue on white).

Some learnings are:

• Black underglaze works well not only with the transparent glaze but also the translucent green and amber glazes. I reckon it'll work well unser the green in the bottom right too.
• The studio's shiny white combined with translucent green makes a minty colour that I quite like.
• I need patience and clean dry hands for glazing. It's really easy to leave accidental marks on things.
• Beware of wet tongs - if water transfers onto the pot surface it can disrupt the application of glaze.
• For non potters, we use the tongs to hold pots while dipping them in glaze - we can also hold pots using our hands but have to be careful about unintended finger marks etc. There are also brush on glazes that you can apply with a paintbrush but the ones available to me in the studio are all dipping glazes!
• Specific to the studio's glazes - I feel like the green glazes could use a longer dip.
• I also suspect the clear glaze could too since it's so thin, but I am wary that it might start to make the underglaze look cloudy. Need to test this; not enough time!

Some more trimmed pots 🍯

 

Trimmed these fellows in the most recent class; we have our last one tonight, glazing!

I've enjoyed doing this 6 week throwing course, felt like I've learned a bunch and also made a load of pots I can give away as gifts (I'll keep one or two I guess). I hope I can keep throwing afterwards...

As an aside, O has been sleeping terribly lately, so I haven't had a lot of energy outside of work and childcare; hence the lack of posting. I have been able to sketch here and there, and have plodded on with my various knitting projects. 

The only thing that's really coming along is my reading every (ish) night! I've read 3 of the Stormlight Archive books, and am currently trying to make a dent in my 'to be read' pile (also known as the bookcase). I'm taking a break from Stormlight to read Safe Area Gorazde, a non-fiction comic about the Bosnian war, by Joe Sacco. It's gutting.

throwing class week 3 🎡

 

Not got anything smart to say here, except we trimmed pots! Now the pots are slightly more dry we removed some of the excess clay from the bottoms to make the pots more neat, balanced and lighter weight-wise.

Some of mine are still hefty, like the centre front pot which is like a paperweight! But that should be fine if it has enough time to dry out. These will be dried then biscuit fired before I get to play with some surface decoration.

I'm happy with how they look and am looking forward to glazing, seeing how they turn out and then of course giving them away to friends as various birthday and possibly Christmas presents. Perhaps I'll keep one or two 🤔

throwing class #2 🎡

 I'm back on a 6 week throwing course at the studio! 

My first discovery on the course was that I think I had forgotten I'm meant to have the pottery wheel turning anti clockwise, and that could probably explain why my attempts haven't been going super well at home.

So my attempts at centering last night went better. And it appears that when I'm centering I often get a bit of clay right at the bottom (closest to the wheelhead surface) that doesn't get centred (cause it's just a tiny bit under my hands that's not going to be thrown). And then this wobble coming from the bottom makes me skeptical about whether my actual throwing clay is centred or not. So I need to be conscious of this and maybe remove some of the extra gumpf at the bottom of the wheel after initially trying to centre.

Anyway, here's 3 pots I started. I made a 4th but it died 🥺

The first one I had fun with making a different shape, and then also messed up picking it up off the wheel.

A general cylindrical shape.

I messed up the top on this one so I decided to see what would happen if I kept constricting it further and further, and I managed to close it off - it's a bit wonky though! Also I have no idea how much water is trapped inside, so I will try to drain it next week.

First trimming on the 2nd hand wheel (bit of a fail)

 So - I tried trimming/turning on my wheel the other day and it was kinda a fail - but still a good learning experience. After throwing the pots I left them out for a couple days; but because it's summer I think they dried too much, which made trimming them later on the wheel quite difficult - maybe it was impossible  to do a good job, because they were too dry?

I still don't hate it though so I don't consider this a complete failure! And of course it was a learning experience in terms of how long to leave pots out in summer and how it makes trimming feel.

In one of them I assume the dryness/hardness is what caused this funky effects below.

What also probably didn't help was that my centering probably wasn't perfect either. Oh well! Better luck next time.

---> There was a next time, by the way. I made 3 pots at the clay studio one day and then when I realised I wouldn't get back to the studio in time to trim them due to the summer weather, I went and picked up the 3 pots. And then dropped the bag on the way home, resulting in 3 manky dented pots. 1 of them got carved into to make a faceted pot and the other two I attempted to trim, and failed, and promptly smooshed them, ripped them up and stuck them in the reclaim bucket!

I'll try and add a picture of the faceted pot later on in another post. Now I have 3 pots just taking their time, drying away, while I figure out how to fire them at home - possibly in an incinerator bin or chiminea.

Testing out my cheap 2nd hand wheel 🛞

 

I had today off from work and a couple of hours to spend before an appointment, so I set up the 2nd hand wheel that I had bought online. It's a generic model, I don't think it has a specific brand or manufacturer, but it's easy to find if you search pottery wheel on various popular websites. I've seen this wheel sold new from anything between £100-150, but I got it 2nd hand for £80 including postage. I thought it's a fair deal for figuring out whether pottery at home is feasible, for me, a newly obsessed person with a tendency to forget about hobbies after a while.

General Points

• The wheelhead is noticeably small when throwing, 25cm in diameter or so, but I think it will be big enough for me to create small items like mugs, bowls, small plates, etc.
• The splash pan is easy to remove and reattach after cleaning.
• The speed control is not perfect but it's enough for me to have fast, medium, and slow speeds for each stage of throwing.
• The height is low, many people have said this for these cheap wheels. I think it's less of a problem for me as I am small, but I am still crouching like a gremlin. I think it'll take some time to get used to the needed posture here.
• I'm using a cheap foldable stool/step that I had in the kitchen to sit on.

Experience

Now I'm a beginner and will continue to be so for a while - so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt. I think this wheel will be sufficient for me while I'm still in the beginner and earlier intermediate stages. 

When centering, right at the beginning, I found the clay got a bit all over the place; more so than my experiences at the pottery studio (I think they have Shimpos and one other fancy wheel). But after the initial chaos everything worked as expected.

I'm going to admit; this session I only threw 2 pots, and I bet I had some slight off centre bits in my clay because I was impatient and very aware of the impending appointment I mentioned. I will give it all another go at some point soon and if there's anything new to report I will add it in!

In Other News

I finished my previous book, Butter by Asako Yuzuki, and started The Healing Season of Pottery by Yeon Somin. It's... as it looks and sounds, another in the cosy East Asian fiction genre that popped up over the past few years. I'm enjoying it a lot, I'm sure a big part of it is that it mirrors in some ways my own introduction to ceramics; but it is just a nice and chilled out read. I may even check out the author's other books or some other ones within the genre.

Oop

 Oups -

I spat in the face of my previous blog -

And, when payday rolled around, I picked up a few bits from my clay wishlist;

I got:

• Clay - cheap, grogged terracotta
• 1 large sponge for cleaning
• 1 cutting wire
• 1 large bucket for reclaim
• 1 wooden rib
• 1 metal flexible kidney rib

Not only that, though! While I can happily report that I did not shop at amazon for a cheap wheel or buy one off Vevor (for a start it looks like their pottery wheels don't deliver to the UK as I had to view the item on the Irish store), I did discover a 2nd hand cheap amazon-esque wheel on eBay for £80 - so that happened.

A couple of fellow clay studio folks were talking about the beginner wheels they'd acquired, and another had one of these cheaper wheels; and another had shared a video of a ceramicist reviewing one - as sufficient enough for a newbie - so I felt fairly safe in my punt.

It's arrived and appears to be working so I will give it a go. If it's awful, at least I haven't bought it new for upwards of £150, and if it satisfies someone else's needs then I can pass it along.

The next steps for me include trying to find a window of time to figure out a working setup in the conservatory, outdoors, or the summer house. I don't really have a suitable place to wedge at the moment, if needed. I know there's a big piece of wood I had knocking about somewhere pre-moving house, so if I can find that, I can use it on the floor and kneel down for the time being. We'll see!

Updates to follow, and I suppose you can see some of my janky pots I made at the last class I attended.