Session 8

STARTIGN MY LIVE PROJECT – Designing the Mugs and Tea Pot for Titanic Brewery and raising money for Douglas Macmillan Hospice.

At the end of August we are having a fun filled weekend at the Royal Exchange in Stone, where I have been asked to design some mugs and a Tea Pot to raise some money for the charity.

So to start off, I started casting the handles. As you can see from the images below I have done quite a few. My target is to make 40 mugs and 1 Tea Pot.

Session 7

With the stuff out of the kiln we could glaze the objects. We cleared the studio as a big space was needed. I glazed 3 of my sculptures and going to put under glaze on the other two sculptures.

As I had completed my Tea Pot design I started cutting it out and placing the designs on my Tea Pot.

Session 6

As there was enough bowls, jugs, mugs, teapots and my sculpture to pack the kiln, we packed it. As I had never packed one before I was shown how to do it correctly.

Tip: mark where you have put the kiln props as this will help keep everything lined up.

Session 5 Today I got to make my own Sculptures, from small casted objects which would lead to a final outcome. Today’s session was just about playing around with shapes to create a more abstract final outcome. I got to work on my carving and joining technique. As you can see from the images I really enjoyed playing around with the casted shapes and going to develop them further by adding glazes to the sculptures to bring out the details on each one of the sculptures.

SESSION 4

Mould Making

In today’s session I got shown how to make a mould. As you can see from the images, the edges around the models are very neat (where the plaster meets the clay model). This creates a neat seam line, meaning that you won’t need to neaten up the slip casted piece that much.

If you have a messy mould this will mean your slip casted piece will be very messy and will take time to neaten up. If you put the time into your mould it will take less time to neaten it up. 

This group of images show my decoration on my Bowl.
Session 3 

In this session I learnt how to use stencils to decorate a form

The top image shows the stencils which i have cut out of paper.

The two images below show the bowl with black slip on it and i have painted it on with a brush and using the whirler to get a nice even finish. 

Some Technical Stuff:

Pint weight of glaze = 28 fl oz

Pint weight of water = 20 fl oz

Dry weight of glaze = 8 oz

Bentonite = is used as it is a suspender which stops the dry part of the glaze from separating from the liquid (water)

Calcium Chloride addition = is also used as it is a suspender which stops the dry part of the glaze from separating from the liquid (water)Also it makes it easier to apply coatings of even thickness when it has been mixed into the glaze.

 Tongs = are used to hold a piece of ceramics.-

Lets you hold a cup/bowl and allows you to dip the shape into the glaze with minimum finger marks placed on the form 

   

This clever piece of equipment is called
a Torsion Visc Commeter.


Session 2 

Wasting no time we got stuck in ! 

   The image below is a Torsion Visc Commeter which measures the Fluidity of the Slip. 

   So to use it you have to :

   make sure the dial (the little pointer) is on one 

  fill the little container with slip and stir for 1 minute with a glass rod
  then spin the dial round (anti-clockwise)
  let it stop - this reading shows the fluidity.
  leave for a minute (this will allow the slip to go a little bit thicker)
  then spin the dial again (anti-clockwise) 
  let it stop - this reading shows the Thixotropy
  leave for another minute and the slip with get thicker

  then spin the dial again when we tested the Fluidity.

When we tested the slip our readings where

273 - fluidity

267- thixotrophy 

264 - thixotrophy 

what Thixotorphy means - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thixotropy

After using the Torsion Visc Commeter and we were happy with the readings we got started on the Slip Casting. We casted all day as this is a good way of getting loads of casts done as everything is set up and will save you time in the long run.

We ended up casting two big platters, loads of tea pot lids, some forms that I shall be using to create my sculpture! and casted two tea pots. which  get decorate mine and take it home J

!Below shows my TeaPot in the making !