Dishes and Jars

Allie had been able to help out a couple of days lately. It's great to have two for the extruded ware, one to push and one to pull. The trouble with extruding is that it is always tempting to get a bigger batch of work started than is possible to work on in one go. Here are the extruded dishes sit waiting to be slipped

The extruder charged, die in place all ready to go. This time well labelled. It's amazing how easy it is to get things upside down, back to front or the wrong way round.

I also started some more long hangings, there seemed to be a few empty spaces in the showroom that were asking for them. These are marked with an incised design and have an initial brushed coat of slip. The rest of the colour will be added at the glaze stage.

This smaller set of dishes, (I call them 'rug platters'), have a coat of poured slip. I rest them on supports to prevent sagging until the slip dries a little.

The rug platters fit in the smaller kiln, so they are finished more quickly. This one has a bee pattern, a wallpaper like departure but I sort of like it.

Also extruded are some taller pots. Here again the design has been incised with more colour to be added after the biscuit firing.

As always the shape and feel of the vessel dictates the design.

This week Allie came round again to help me out. I was in a bit of rush to get everything at a state before I head off for the rest of the month. We got the first biscuit kiln unpacked, the bases waxed and all then dipped in transparent glaze.

The glaze kiln was fired yesterday, though I won't get it unpacked now until I return and the current batch of slip decorated work is now drying on the shelves.