Picasso has nothing on LLL

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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

LLL, your little set-up sounds ideal, what a shame you are time limited. I can understand why only the instructors are allowed to operate the kilns as 'placing' is quite skilled in order to get correct firing and to ensure no damage occurs to the kiln lining with items getting stuck to the fire bricks, believe it or not but I have seen this happen inside of long industrial kilns that could not be shut down without incurring great cost and a marksman was brought in to shoot the offending item off the side wall. Probably the reason you are not allowed to use your own glazes is down to toxicity, many glazes are comprised of some really dangerous metallic compounds that could give off poisonous fumes, so without correct precautions they are dangerous to use, so no doubt that is the reasoning behind it as they will only use approved glazes. Of course it may also have something to do with the firing temperatures being consistent over all the items.

Your clays (the greyish white one) is probably a mixture of Kaolin (Porcelain) Clay and Ball Clay very commonly used for domestic pottery items and it fires at a lower temperature than other types, blending the two types together makes it more plastic and workable. The red one will be Earthenware Clay which is very sticky, but highly workable, mainly used for jugs and pots.

@ MD ;)


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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@H - I never thought about any of the glazes being toxic but I do know that ALL the glazes we are using are "food safe" as I figured it is better to be safe than sorry re: leeching lead or whatever in all our masterpieces. Some of the ladies are very serious and creating absolutely beautiful gorgeous items whilst others (and I'm including me in this group) are learning and basically playing to figure out what works and what doesn't work.

I haven't tried or touched the red clay yet but the finished work really does look quite nice.

I also know the Pottery Instructor lady has stressed doing a THIN layer of glaze vs thick and I assumed she was trying to preclude glaze dripping down and adhering onto the kiln but I've also noticed that a thin layer glazes better when finished than a thick layer.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

These are my latest two endeavours. Talent abounds! ;) :) :)

This small house is a proto-type of a larger one I'm thinking about doing. The larger one will be lots wider and heavier and I want it to cover up a few nail holes along a section of outside fence.

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This face was nothing special and just going to add to the 'crowd' of faces on the post holding up the birdhouse ;)

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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

Your talent and imagination knows no bounds ;) :up
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Yup - "no bounds" ME! ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Lots more coming out of the kiln these days.

After working on some faces I turned to thinking about what I'd knit & crochet this fall. I think thought that what would make my knit caps look really interesting would be BIG pottery buttons soooooo..........They're actually rather large.

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Not that buttons are as exiting or interesting to look at as ugly faces but I did try and make these ones unique hence a pattern was pressed into the clay, then shapes cut out, used tiny straws to make holes and fired. I used a brown wash only cause I thought it would kinda interesting to have a rustic effect against the wool.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

They are really lovely LLL, you are improving evey day :up
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Ruby Slippers »

If you want to try making buttons at home, try Fimo. You can bake them in a domestic oven. It was all the rage here about 20-odd years ago. I still have some homemade ones in my button drawer. :tk
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@RS - FIMO? I haven't heard of that. Whatever it is it sounds like tough stuff if you can bake it in an oven and get a button out of it.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

LovelyLadyLux wrote:@RS - FIMO? I haven't heard of that. Whatever it is it sounds like tough stuff if you can bake it in an oven and get a button out of it.
Heres a link to the stuff: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FIMO-Effect-Po ... fimo&psc=1
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Grandad »

Pottery art, green fingers, is there no end to your talent LLL? ;)

Just been up in the attic, think I may have found a lost Michelangelo? :lol:
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Wow - FIMO is sold in 2 ounce packages for that price? 15 Pounds? WHOA! No wonder I've never heard of it! Geez that is expensive however now that I see the packages I do believe I've seen them in some of the craft stores. Don't think I ever touched a package or looked at the product though. No idea if it is something that is popular here or not.

@Grandad - YUP my talents abound! ;) ;) ;) Like I said - Picasso has nothing on Me! ;) ;)
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Was another pottery studio day today. Good news I got stuff from the Kiln but bad news one of my pieces got broke and another just didn't turn out well glaze-wise.

I quite loved the pattern I was able to get on this one but the back go kinda smooshed and broke :(

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I also quite liked this bowl. I put chocolate brown on first. Let it dry and then dipped it into another glaze called 'waxy white' which was supposed to bring out the blue but it brought out the blue on half of it but not all of it. The Instructor said I probably held the first (the whiter) half in the glaze too long but I dipped it all whilst holding the bowl with tongs........OR she said maybe it was whatever was beside it in the kiln or where it was in the kiln......lots of variables

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Then I made another one of these. I'm making a whole bunch all different (this is bigger than the first) cause I'm going to make a street to go along the bottom of a section of fence :) :)

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Like I said - Picasso has nothing on LLL ;) ;) ;)
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Mad Dilys »

Indeed your talents know no bounds! Beautiful. :up
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

Fabulous job LLL and if the fault lies anywhere its with the person loading the kiln. The first one looks to have deformed due to being unsupported in some way, maybe over hanging a shelf? And the second one does look like contamination from the metals in another glaze, but it still looks very attractive. Can’t wait to see the little village when its all finished. ;)
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Grandad »

From the picture, I actually like the bowl with variegated white/blue edge . A touch of Moorcroft methinks. ;) :lol:

Really well done.........now wait until you get on a wheel. ;)
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

@Grandad - I like the bowl with the blue too. That is chocolate brown glaze with waxy white glaze over top. Gives a very interesting effect as the combo of the two glazes mix. It gives more of a mat finish too which I like better than the super shiny look.

@H - With the white bowl somebody moved it when it must've been really wet in the drying closet. I think somebody showed their piece in there bumped mine, didn't see it and so by the time it dried it was all mushed up. I fired it anyway as I wanted to see how the glaze "waxy white" turned out over the pattern and I liked that enough to fire again. What us Seniors get to make our items in are Styrofoam meat tray containers. They're not terribly rigid and so are very easily bumped, moved, squashed etc. Now that I've had this experience I've kinda said 'no more' in that I'm not going to all the work to have a class push my stuff and end up damaging it sooooo I've taken me out to the Thrift stores and I've bought some old and super cheap metal containers. The old silver plate stuff that nobody wants ('cept me now). I've noticed the professional people who are potting bringing in their own and using them so I've started to do that now too. Made 2 bowls this past Thursday that are now in a sturdy metal containers to dry - might take a day or two longer to dry but they won't be mashed up.

As for the glaze - I'm not too sure what happened. I used tongs to dip it into the glaze and I don't believe I let it pool on one side - hence more white but will see next time. I like that combo and I like the finish so am thinking I'll be doing more of it. There is also another glaze - 'waxy white + speckle' and will try it next to see how that fires.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

Went to the second of the Block Printing lectures today. Saw some slides and a bit more talk of how block printing evolved then we all got a 4" x 6" piece of paper to draw our own design that we were going to cut out.

I drew a design/picture, transferred it onto the cutting medium (the pink slab) and then using these digger things - carving tools ultimately cut out this design:

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We then put ink onto a tile and using a wooden dowel with a handle spread the ink onto the dowel and then onto the top of what we carved out.

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The first result was on really textured paper that just sucked up the ink and then onto paper that had a harder exterior.

The jury is out on whether making block carving pictures will be my next hobby. Enjoyed the lecture and was fun coming up with a picture, carving it out and then making prints but not too sure if this is really going to hold my interest.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by Horus »

I must admit to being fascinated by this sort of art and once did it when very young. The various stages are all interesting and I do like to see the very intricate ones when they are printed, my only problem is what do you do afterwards. By that I mean if you are so talented that you can draw a really good picture to start with (unlike myself) then why not just draw it directly onto paper? As I see it unless you are intending to make a lot of copies then the first steps seems a little pointless.
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Re: Picasso has nothing on LLL

Post by LovelyLadyLux »

That is exactly where I'm stuck Horus. WHY would I want to make multiple prints of something? First you draw it all out, fill in where you want to leave it one colour and take away where you want nothing, ink it all up and then what? The more you print the more blurry the lines get so in this particular medium you really don't want more than about 5 but even so ..... one stop Christmas prezzies for the entire family all the same?

It was fun and I enjoyed hearing about the history, the different societies and how they are more or less intricate i.e. Japan and China SUPER intricate, Canadian Inuit - not so much ;)

I could see if you were making cards you'd want to print out a dozen or so of 10 or more designs. That being said this year I'm mailing out about 4 cards to elderly relatives who do not use internet......sooooo fun but practical application (for me) not too sure.
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