clay: text on speckled buff

My neighbor, Cecilia wanted me to make white pots for her niece's planter set, but all I had in my ceramics locker were Speckled Buff and Dixon Red clays. I figured I could still make white pots for the planter she ordered if I just covered with gloss white glaze.  And I don’t need to put wax resist in the text, which I'd been doing and then been frustrated by the inconsistent glazing. Just let the glaze crawl and break on and in the recesses of the inscribed letters like on the little pot below.                  

I had started this commission in the Central Park studio last Saturday. The glaze room had been busy, and so from 1:30 to 4:00, I hustled and rolled 4 slabs of the Speckled Buff and hoped it would get leather enough to work with while I jumped back into the glaze room to dip two salt crocks in buckets of clear gloss. And then back to my slabs which were still so soft, but in 2 and half hours I made the fastest 3 pots ever while also glazing that bisqueware. There went my intentions to be a slow hand builder! I inscribed the pots below with the words, “scallions,” “oregano,” and “thyme” and was able to rub out (when the clay dried to leather) or sand away most of the ghost marks when the pots were bone dry.

It got dark too early after Saturday clay class to build the drainage tray, and I was too lazy Sunday to even touch the clay. I did however, load the 3 pots and the 4th slab into my car to bring to the classroom studio on Tuesday. By then, the clay was leather hard enough to refine the pots and construct a tray for them to fit in.

I am not unhappy with this build although the rectangular tray is not at 90 degree angles. But Zan commented that the planter set looked so good.

And there were scraps enough to construct two more cylinder pots.

 

And this time, I used larger letter stamps. I put a note that I needed to sand the bone dry pots before the kids load the set into the kiln.

The pots above are still on the greenware shelf, and they probably won't get fired for a few weeks. And that's okay. 

I managed to go to the Clay Club yesterday to roll out 4 slabs of Electric Brown and make another 3 pots for another commission, also for Cecilia, but for her nephew. An hour and half after school didn't give me time to build the drainage dish, but I'm hoping for the same outcome on this Electric Brown clay as with the Speckled Buff. The 4th slab for the rectangle dish as well as the 3 dark brown pots are all under plastic atop a giant ware board in the back set of my car for Saturday clay studio, of which I'll post pics later.