Been tweaking this glaze for a while and it is finally coming out how I wanted.

hey yall! thank you for checking out my post 😊

i’m a nc potter and have initially been trained in the nc tradition. now i’m in bizen and im learning the bizen way of fire! one thing that’s been on my mind a lot lately is where to draw the line between whats considered practicing a tradition and whats considered new and “original”. halfway across the world i’m still thinking about old nc pots and making pots inspired by them… i want to look elsewhere but i can’t shake this draw that i have to nc pots.. i want to continue a tradition but i also want to add to it.

ig what im wondering is where do you set the boundary between looking at a tradition and creating something that is removed from it?

I’m still not over the moon about these glaze results but definitely happier with them compared to my first haul…I can’t wait to eventually find that holy grail glaze combo and NEVER have to experiment & ruin pieces again 😆

After nearly two months in the making, she’s finished! I couldn’t be happier with how this turned out and I hope that you get a kick out of it too. :)

Wheel-thrown and hand-altered (with rolled coils) ceramic vase — measuring approximately 7.5”x 4”x 12.5” — made using Laguna B-Mix + a combination of two community studio bucket glazes, and fired to C5/6 in an electric kiln.

s/o to the kiln techs i trust you with my life

Another apple mug from my wife's workshop – this time a yellow and red combination. Red is always the trickiest to fire, you have to find that exact spot in the kiln where it actually stays red instead of turning into something else. Of course, it took some testing to get there.

So my studio's been shut for a month and I haven't thrown anything in all that time. Which was annoying. I ended up just sketching ideas instead, and I kept running into the same thing, working out clay weights. Every time.

Anyway I'm a developer too so at some point I stopped complaining about it and made something.

https://girella.io

You draw the profile, pick a clay body, it gives you the weights and dimensions.

Honestly wasn't going to post it anywhere. But a couple of friends and the WhatsApp group from my studio kept telling me to share it properly, so I made some improvements for being public, and here I am.

Should say, I've checked the numbers against my book and they look consistent, so I think the maths is fine. But I haven't tested any of it at the wheel. Not once. Studio opens next weekend and that's genuinely the first thing I'm doing. While I am a bit exited to check these numbers, you should be a bit careful with it until then.

Would really appreciate feedback and ideas. Especially if you try it and the numbers don't match what you actually end up with.

PS: if you make a shape, share it! They show up on the front page automatically, the 20 most liked so people will not only see my own demo creation.

PS2: And no, I'm not trying to turn this into a business or anything.

PS3: I hope I do not violate the subreddit rules 🙏🏻. If so, please comment and I will remove, you are one of my favorite subreddit and I do not want to be annoying.

First jar. Hoping it doesn't crack lol. It's huge and heavy. Need to work on thinner walls and really get lids better hahaha. But still!

How freaking difficult! 😞 I start being very demotivated about handles. I spend so much time on a single one, and the result is always awful. I tried different kind of handles, but every time I find it extremely difficult to attach to the mug. How do you guys deal with it?? I saw so many videos of you just rolling, cutting and attaching, but I still don’t get even so much close to it. This is mainly a vent but if you have suggestions or a video that literally kicked it for you, and you want to share, please do. Thank you!🙏🏻

Tiles to cover an electrical panel. Slab building. Seaweed using the coil technique. High fired in the kiln.

The black matte on the bottom of the piece didn’t come out as solid as I’d hope I’d applied it. Do we think if I reglazed the bottom and refired slightly cooler, the top will be relatively the same? 😅😅

I’ve been a member of a studio for the past couple years (some throwing, mostly handbuilding), but I’m taking some time off from that this fall/winter while life is a bit chaotic and to save some money.

I’d love to lean more into just playing around with clay at home this fall before it gets too cold. I’m not concerned about making anything amazing; I mostly just want to get creative and become even more comfortable with the material. If anything turns out, I can fire it later.

Materials-wise, I’m thinking a small secondhand table + self-healing cutting mat for a work surface, a plaster wet box for pieces in progress, and a small bucket or two of water (I can dump here and refill with hose). Nothing fancy.

Has anyone done much handbuilding outdoors? I already suspect it's not ideal for drying (I'd bring the wet box inside) but for actually working with clay and spending an hour or so at a time out there working in the fresh air.. I don't mind if there are little issues, but I don't want it becoming unworkable within an hour. Anything I should think about? Any tips appreciated! tia

Re:outside - I just like being out there, the air is fresh, I don't have to worry about particles floating around and sticking to things inside, it's quick to rinse stuff down with the hose, etc etc

I finished my senior show last semester and I’m finally back in the studio before I graduate this December:). I focus mainly on turning functional work into non-functional or hardly functional pieces, and use bodies/body parts within my pieces.
Enjoy my moldy clay bodies that I haven’t touched in half a year!!!!

I volunteer with an elderly lady in my community and we went to do some pottery last month. It was her first ever time doing any kind of sculpting and she decided to make this gorgeous Lotus. She doubted it every step of the way. I told her that to expect perfection from your first pottery piece is ludicrous (accidentally spelled that like the rapper the first time omg)

We went back to glaze and she was shocked that it was still in the same position she left it, she thought it was too flimsy to hold up in the kiln. She really struggled with keeping her colours organized as they were so pale, and she wanted to be ambitious with a gradient. We had to take a few time outs to recombobulate and figure out which order we were going in.

Despite her frustrations, she made a beautiful piece of art. She didn’t like it but knew I loved it and was proud of her, so it’s mine now. I sometimes carry it around the house and use it as a worry stone.

I've just started selling at shows/festivals. What is the best size/brand tub for transport?

I want to go with something a little bigger than 32qt. I've tried the largest size and the lids pop off! So those will just be for storage. But I need some larger/taller ones for my medium size pieces!

Hi all!

I rent a space at my local studio, but since I've been there less than a year, I can only rent a shoebox-sized locker. ( Larger spaces are reserved for the teachers and long term renters.) So I bought a Soolla bag to keep some of my personal tools and used the locker for glazes. I have bought even more glazes, so I need more space. Would keeping them in my car for easy access when I go to the studio be okay? I live in PA, if that informs you of the changing weather.

I am new to pottery and am currently in between beginner courses at one of our local clay studios. (I WILL throw a nice cylinder, dangit!) One thing I'd like to explore in this next class (10 wks vs 5 wks) will be some hand building skills because myself and my two housemates have autoimmune issues that sometime bugger our hands. (They've been taking classes, too.) While I know I can buy some, I thought it would be fun to get creative with stuff around our house. I've not been successful in choosing the right words for a google search.

My question currently is what things around your house have you used to make a form or mold for something? Think using pvc piping to make a certain sized mug body or a cookie cutter that you then put over a plastic bowl to be a dish.

I’m like a bull in a china shop so often when handling greenware or especially leather hard pieces, I break everything.

(I’ve started using stroke and coat but I have many many small containers of underglaze I’d like to use up.)

Is there any downside to bisque firing a piece, underglazing, bisque firing again and then applying a clear glaze and glaze firing? I’ve found if I apply underglaze to a bisque piece and then immediately clear glaze without a fire to set the underglaze in between, the underglaze comes out looking watery/runny and just not very crisp.

I’m using amaco velvet glazes if it makes a difference.

I am currently working on a piece that has a large sword and thought it would be cool to try and get it to look as realistic as possible.

I am using a community kiln and dont have experience or the time to work with Palladium and dial it in.

Looking to get some feedback on what others have for an idea on how to achieve this. I have been looking at spectrums mirror or metallic glazes but there are so few examples of it that I can find. I am not opposed to using an over glaze/luster, but shoot me some ideas!

Its a baby name sign thing for my daughter, Marceline. So I have been working on having her name over the sword on the adventure time logo haha. In case you were wondering.