Slab-built, using white stoneware clay, then coated with a porcelaneous slip, turning the surface into a white canvas for my design.
A tree emerges from the long, dark winter, to bloom with the first hints of spring. I throw, blow, squirt and drip glaze and oxides onto the lightly-damp surface. A small amount of transparent glaze, blown onto the bright yellow heaps of of yellow stain held it solidly in place during the firing.
Fired to cone 6, in oxidation.
A slab impressed against bark, then twisted into the shape of a tree trunk.
Stoneware, black clay, fired to cone 6, in oxidation.
Slab-built, with a dark black clay, finished on the wheel; the rim cut away to firm waves.
To provide a variety of dark black tones, darker than the grey that the black clay would become once fired, I dipped a small, rough sponge in black underglaze, and swept it up the length of the vase, several times. I wanted to create a sense of moving waters, and swirling vegetation in the depths. The first step was pouring a thin layer of a matte, olive-grey glaze, from the top, and down, holding the cylinder at a sharp angle. This glaze, when applied thin over the dark surface, turns ashen, a lovely surface over which to squirt streams of yellow slip, tinged with rutile, sunlight reflecting off the swirling kelp. A few quick strokes of black, high-grit glaze applied with a hard-bristled brush, further break up the surface.
Stoneware, fired to cone 6, in oxidation.
Some of us at ClayWorks have been experimenting with Falls Creek Shino, which works quite nicely in oxidation to cone 6 (depending of course on application thickness, specific gravity, clay used, and all the other parameters that come into play). Initial tests were promising, so I used it on this piece. The result was good, but I hadn’t really thought about this shino actually giving quite a glossy finish, something I didn’t want for these pieces. I hid it away for a while, and wondered.
What about pouring another, more matte glaze over the entire piece, and hope the cylinder survives a second glaze firing? Given the ruggedness of the vessel, I wondered whether a crawl would do the trick.
Whether it still looks like bark, I don’t know. But the satin white glaze has broken up beautifully as it slipped into the crevasses of this shino-glazed cylinder.
Hand-built, stoneware slab, moulded against bark.
Fired to Cone 6, in oxidation.
Ht: 31 cm; dia. at base: 8 cm
You may think it surprising to see this tree trunk here; after all, it is a hand-thrown cylinder, like the Ghost Gums I made last year. More recently I have been making my barks from my hand-pressed moulds (see Tree trunk, black).
I really liked the grit that I’d pressed into the clay here and there, and I’d thought light touches of colour might complement it nicely. But it needed more work. I left the cylinder to wait for a more inspired moment. It waited quite some time.
The other day I decided enough was enough. I took a matte, black glaze that I knew well. and thought I’d add some local grit. Knowing from previous tests that the grit from around our studio fired nicely, I took a handful and added it to my pot of glaze. Then took my paintbrush and applied it to the base of my old cyclinder.
Being a second firing, this glaze’s colour fired to a very different colour from its usual matte black, giving me much lighter greyish tones. The parking lot grit adhered nicely.
Stoneware, fired in oxidation to cone 6. Height 12″; dia at base 3.7″
My tree trunks are becoming more varied. Since my earlier blog post Ghost Gums, which were thrown on the wheel, I have more recently been using slabs of clay, impressed on trees, as moulds. I explained the process in my post Tree Trunk, black.
I press, and tear, and force the seams together, and they don’t seem to mind. I used quite a variety of underglazes here, adding sand to the mix, aiming to create an unexpected, slightly rough, bark-like effect.
These two seem to belong together, the one nestling in the lee of the other.
Stoneware. Fired in oxidation, to Cone 6. 1. Ht: 13″, dia: 2.5″; 2. Ht: 11″, dia: 2″
Stoneware; black clay: ht. 30 cm
Fired in oxidation to Cone 6
Here’s the latest in my series on tree trunks. They’ve been changing, radically, over time. The early ones, based on the Ghost Gums I saw in Sydney, were two thrown cylinders, attached, and made with a very white porcelaneous stoneware. Most of the cylinder remained almost pure white, with only the base dark, coated in a high grit, matte, dark glaze. In Cape Town, the variety of trees in the downtown Company Gardens was so astonishing, so huge, that to reflect their variety, I turned to underglazes, which I saw potters using while I was there.
Then at home during the summer, and with the studio closed due to Covid 19, I worked on my balcony rolling out slabs of clay, which I’d take on my walks, and press them against trees, for texture. I then tried to force the slabs into cylinders. I soon realized that to improve them, I really needed a positive impression of the bark. Therefore, when Gladstone Clayworks re-opened, I began bisquing some of these bark impressions, and continuing from there.
This piece came out of the kiln yesterday. I had dipped the entire piece into a matt black glaze, and then sponged most of the glaze off the raised areas. The result provides two tones, enhancing the rough texture of the vessel.
Porcelaneous stoneware. Fired to Cone 6, in oxidation. Dimensions
Height:: 33 cm, 33 cm, and 25 cm.
Made during the month I spent at TAFE Northern Beaches (Sydney) – Open Studio – Ceramics.
I must have spent a long time gazing at the ghost gum trees I came across while walking in in the bush along the Sydney coastline, Other trees too, like the strangler figs, were equally stunning, but the ghost gums took my breath away, with their dark, decaying bark peeling away to reveal the naked smooth-white trunk reaching upwards towards the sky: fire and ash, decay, strength, and regrowth.
Nothing came of the project I had initially put forward to Christopher James (who runs the ceramics school there) as justification for being accepted into the Open Studio. But a series of these tree trunk vases/cylinders came out instead, which made me happy.
Two cylinders, thrown; the lower part of the base then coated with a mix of slips, oxides, grit and earth from my walks, to provide texture for the breaking, peeling bark. With the cylinders still damp, I then attached the second cylinder to the first, working on the wheel to fuse them seamlessly together. I added more slips and stains further up the cylinder. Once bisqued, I sprayed a fine layer of clear glaze to the surface, and fired the cylinders to cone 6, in oxidation.
These three cylinders are my second submission, currently exhibited for August, at Galerie Côté Créations (98 Richmond road), as part of our Ottawa Guild of Potters’ monthly showcase.
Am still working on the concept British potter Chris Keenan was trying to get through to us last year (at a workshop in Bambrugge, Netherlands): think about the shapes and glazing with a view to displaying the pieces together, making the grouping provide added-value to the pieces.
The base glaze on all three cyclinders was the same ochre-based glaze I used for the Lidded Moon Jars; over this I squirted an off-white near the base, to varying heights; then came the titanium based grainy gold. Here I had to carefully estimate how high to place this third glaze, to avoid the risk of having the glaze run off the piece.
What I really like about these pieces is an unexpected gift to me from the kiln. Based on the positive experience on refiring my Lidded Moon Jars, I thought I might try and enhance these pieces by doing the same here. See where on all three cylinders I squirted a fine line of droplets of white? On the second firing, where the dark tenmoku ran past the fine line of white, the droplets flowed with it, dropping to the bottom edge of the run, highlighting the rim with traces of white…
Porcelaneous stoneware; fired to Cone 6, in oxidation.
These vases are among the last pieces I made in 2016 while still in Brussels. The decoration is very different from what I have been doing in the past: I smeared moist cobalt oxide onto the porcelain, making final adjustments as needed, by adding a little here and there, and sanding marks off where they weren’t wanted. Each vase has either two, or three designs. These tall vases were made by fusing two thrown cylinders together. A clear, transparent glaze poured on the inside; the same glaze lightly sprayed on the outside, using the spray gun.
Audrey Blackman porcelain; fired to cone 6. in oxidation.