clay: slip casting

I’d had a hearty breakfast of my favorite herb baked egg and toasted bread (Preheat oven to 400 degrees; chop garlic, rosemary, thyme, parsley and put in a gratin dish with a pat of butter and a couple tablespoons of cream and a pinch of salt and pop in oven for 4 minutes; remove dish from oven and crack open egg into hot mixture and sprinkle grated parmesan cheese; bake for 4-6 minutes while toasting baguette and then serve).  

I think the reason my tea bowl mold had been so difficult to pry apart was because I didn’t brush enough mold soap on my plaster. Plaster likes to stick on plaster, and so I needed to use a ratio of 3 parts Murphy oil soap to 1 part water and paint it liberally on to the plaster before the second pour of plaster. Lesson learned, and let me make another mold soon lest I forget. Maybe I can even make my own cottle boards by having the dudes at the hardware store cut my boards, and then hacksaw thick shims to size to glue, drill and screw into the cottle board ends. 

While my tea bowl dries for the next two weeks, I’m going to slip cast some of the commercial plaster molds in Zan’s classroom. Like the first pancake, my first slip cast didn’t come out cleanly from the mold. Not. at. all. I needed the slip to dry much, much longer. Blame it on me being a rookie. And so I started over with a bud vase and a soap dish. Don’t forget to rubber band the molds together. Pour the slip (I had porcelain slip called Snow) into the mold to the very brim of the pour spout and let the slip sit 15 to 25 minutes to thicken. I think I let it sit 20 minutes, but kinda wished I had let it sit instead for 15 minutes for a thinner wall. But you need to watch the slip to see if it sinks into the mold and then pour more slip in order to have your slip fully form..                  

Then pour out the slip and let the slip drip out on a rack or over dowels for at least 40 minutes (my walls were kind of thick). Resist the temptation to turn your mold over to look, or you'll have drips back on your cast. Patience, Grasshopper, patience.                

Like watching paint dry, watching slip dry necessitates doing something else in the studio.

During the 40 minute wait for the molds to dry over the slip bucket, I started hand building a bud vase. However, after the 40 minutes, the slip though it was matte on its surface still seemed really soft to the touch rather than leather hard. I let it sit even longer while I continued to work on my bud vase. In the meantime, Sadie was trying to find her groove and be a dutiful studio dog. But she kept wandering to the door and then scratching it to be let out. And so I packed up the molds into a box to bring home and remove the vase and soap dish from their molds there because of an impatient dog.

Once home, in very dry and sunny outdoors, my vase and soap dish didn't seem to come out very easily though the top half of the mold came off after a little prying. Maybe I should have let it dry a little longer in order for it come off with ease. I also didn't cut off the opening or pour spout very neatly, and so I used a rasp on the top of the vase to cut off and even the ragged edge and smoothed it with my red rib and sponge. I also ribbed and sponged the seam lines.                          

I'm not, emphatically not, a production potter, but I could see myself making a plaster mold of my very favorite ceramics and then making very, small, small batches. And now off to the thrift store to forage for beautiful forms to mold and cast.