How I started to be a potter. 3rd month. August 2020

Hi there, I am Kate, beginner potter. This is an article about the 3rd month of me doing pottery. You can check previous post here.

New tools

Again, I bought some missing tools for my studio. Now it seems to me that I’ve got everything I need 🥳.

1. Sieve for the glazes

Sometimes, when you mix a glaze using various chemical powders, there may be large particles, which don’t dissolve completely and settle on the surface of the pots.

To avoid this, the powders must be sieved. Unfortunately, I didn’t do this, so there were white particles in some of the glazes that I mixed. I fixed it easily by passing the liquid glaze through a sieve. I bought this one with a 100 mesh size.

Sieve 100 mesh

2. Diamond Polishing Sponges

It seems to me that this is a very important step which finalizes the pot. Sanding significantly changes the feelings of the pot, sharp corners become smoother and the surface is pleasant to touch. It’s also really practical step as you don’t want your pot to scratch the surface where you put it.

I use these four sponges in the following order:

60#>120#>200#>400#

Diamond polishing sponges

For sanding the bottoms, I use Giffin Grip which speeds up the process and is very convenient for this purpose.

3. Drape Forms by Hartley & Noble

At the very beginning, I bought a lot of G&S Сlay 264 with 0–0.5 mm chamotte by mistake. This clay feels very rough and stubborn and I can’t work with it on the potter’s wheel. So I decided to buy drape forms to make the plates of this clay.

I really enjoyed working with drape forms from Hartley & Noble. It is very convenient and quite simple even for a beginner.

Drape Forms by Hartley & Noble

For making my first plates I’ve been using black clay Sibelco Nigra 2002. Next time I will try G&S 264 with 0–0.5 mm chamotte.

Here’s the result:

Plates created with Drape Forms

I made a video of the process of how I’ve been creating these plates:

Creating a Plate with a Drape Form

In my instagram you can find the good quality video.

I added slip foot at the pottery wheel, using the Giffin Grip. I saw it in one of the OldForgeCreations videos. I used some open source glaze recipes from glazy.org.

I dipped this plate completely in Floating Blue and painted the borders with Heath Ivory with a brush.

I was impressed by result!

Next time I want to paint a larger area with a brush and see how it looks.

New glazes

✅ Peacock Nebula

I fixed the Peacock Nebula glaze issue which I described in my previous article. Firstly, I passed the glaze through the sieve, filtered the particles of SiC 45 mesh, and then added the new SiC 1200 mesh which I ordered in the UK.

✅ Tony Hansen 20x5

I like the way this glaze looks on white clay, but don’t like how it looks on black. On the black clay I get lots of bubbles appearing in this glaze. I don’t know exactly what is the cause of the problem. Perhaps it is simply not noticeable on white clay, or black clay enters into some kind of chemical reaction with this glaze, or evaporates some air and it stays within the glaze. I will try to study this question and will definitely share if I find out something on this topic.

✅ Tony Hansen 20x5 + Mason 6006 5%

✅ Tony Hansen 20x5 + Mason 6242 5%

I liked how these glazes came out. But I forgot to pass them through a sieve, so white particles appeared on the test tiles. I sieved the glaze through and they disappeared.

Test Tiles, 6 September

I decided not to wait for the test tiles and immediately glazed the plates with Tony Hansen 20x5. They were all covered with bubbles. The layer was very thick, I should have added more water. And I also decided to try to paint the bottom with the logo, but it turned out ugly: the logo is not visible and one of the plates sticked to the kiln shelf. I tried to mix 20x5 with Floating Blue and Heath Ivory, and I didn’t like it.

Plates Glaze: Tony Hansen 20x5, Clay: Sibelco Nigra 2002

New Clays

Clay Sibelco Nigra 2002

I bought black clay. As a beginner, it was difficult for me to work with it, it doen’t feel flexible enough. I threw it for 3 weeks for 3–4 hours a day, but I always had issues with pulling the walls. As result I managed to create just a few proper mugs.

I also used it for creating the plates.

Clay: Sibelco Nigra 2002 Glaze: FloatingBlue+HeathIvory, FloatingOrange

G&S Сlay 930 with 0–0.2 mm chamotte with speckles

I enjoyed working with this clay.

Next time I will leave some part unglazed so that the speckles stand out more.

Clay: G&S 930 with speckles Glazes: Tony Hansen 20x5 + Mason 6006 5%, Tony Hansen 20x5 + Mason 6242 5%

I feel much more confident now and next month I plan to postpone new experiments and mainly to consolidate the previously acquired knowledge and skills.

Here you can check my instagram account.

Thank you for reading 🍯 ✌