Pitchers

In this blog, I have shown pitcher forms before, but have not gone into detail about how they are made or how the form has evolved during the making.

This is a very small free form hand pitcher made from a slab with impressed design using a swizzle stick, a sea shell, and a bit of styrofoam packing material.

To make the pitcher, I cut out a bottom freehand in an oval-ish shape, then curved the body of the pitcher slab around the edge of the bottom to fit. I used the clay worm method to seal the sides and bottom together, closing the form with one seam at the front where the spout will go.

I cut a V shape in the front to fit the small hand-formed spout. I left evidence of the cut. I liked that and made a note in my mind to repeat it.

The glaze is celadon and the body is porcelain.

This is a later version of a more distinct surface treatment. This time I added two new patterns; a combed effect. The checked texture is from a scrap of plastic that I picked up in a parking lot. Must have been a part of a tail light….

The basic construction is the same as the hand pitcher shown above, but the body shape was drawn out on a piece of paper before assembly.

There is only one seam in this pitcher also under the spout. This is the beginning of new thinking about spout shapes.

During assembly, I decided there was too much stress on the dip area between the spout section and the back section, so I added a reinforcement 'button' to keep it from splitting. It makes a nice transition element in the design.

The hand fits nicely around the back of this pitcher with the curve resting easily on the hand between the thumb and fingers.

The body is porcelain and the glaze is a semi transparent rutile.

This little guy is also small. It is one of my first tries at hand formed pitchers. Unfortunately, (or fortunately) I sold it. But at least I did have the gumption to photograph it.

In this case, I made the seam down the side instead of under the spout and cut a hole for the spout.

The same technique of cutting out the base first, then forming the body from one slab piece was followed and the spout is also hand-formed.

I pooched out the bottom a bit to give it weight.

This piece served as a glaze test as well. I liked the texture of the slab roller matt showing under the glaze. I named this piece "Black Nose" in my mind.


Another look at an earlier slabbed approach. Basically taking the same form and making two vessels into a creamer and sugar.

The forms are a bit more free and I was playing around more with altering the body and adding feet made of rolled clay.

It is also a glaze experiment using a white body and drizzling a dark brown glaze over edges of the form.



This is a medium sized pitcher and a very early piece. My main experiment was working with the relationship of the handle and the spout.

I wanted them to be the same size and I used the same trusty texture-making tools here. But the difference is the weight and thickness of the glaze. So the pattern comes off a bit more muted.

And the handle is the beginning of thoughts about using rolled clay and the attachment process for a vessel.

















This is a larger pitcher form, but here in the the watering can version. I am still experimenting with the spout and handle idea and also using texture on the exterior.

The thicker glaze mutes the surface more than I wanted, but the ideas of spout and handle are still being explored.

This piece is also in porcelain and the glaze is a version of weathered bronze.

The seam is still at the front of the piece and the spout is cut in and attached.

A new approach; using a thrown form and keeping the handle/spout forms only refining them. This time I'm cutting both the places where the handle attaches to the top rim as well as where the spout attaches.

I again used the reinforcing 'button' at the split for the top of the handle.  The spout is laid into the front split and blended into the body of the pitcher.

The new spout form is an imitation of a tropical leaf form; designed to shed water. It works very well.

I love the break in the glaze. It is Coyote Crocodile glaze fired at cone 5 OX. This is a slightly larger pitcher and it's a keeper.

The next pitcher is the same technique and form, but what a difference a glaze makes!

A slight modification to the form is the elevation of the base with the use of a bevel tool at the end of throwing. It improves the overall look of the piece, I think.

The clay is porcelain and the glaze is three different shinos.

This is one of my favorite pitchers.

Great Teapots

Going through some old files on my computer, I ran across these teapots made by various artists.

I love to look at these and, fortunately, the creators' names were included in this resource.

Enjoy!

Clary Illian

 D'Angel-Wing

 Ester Ikeda

 Fong Choo

 Linda Bloomfield

 Lloyd Hamovit

 Margaret Patterson

 Matt Wilt

 Mathew Hansche

Spoons - Form and Decoration, Part V

It could be argued that all spoons made by hand fall into the category as an art form, as these beautifully graceful salad spoons demonstrate.

These natural clay spoons, when assembled into a display, become an exercise in pattern and form. Yet you could pluck any one out of the arrangement and use it.
No problem firing these!




I'm not sure what the material is used here, but this decoration is a great inspiration that transforms these spoons or dippers into art. Equally functional and artful.




This grouping with similar roundness of spoon bowls, yet varying sizes, similarity in handles, yet variations also in length and thickness still function as a grouping.

And these seem so organic, they could have been picked up on the seashore.  Great interpretation and glaze.

Different handle length and uniformity in similar bowl size create a grouping, yet they all become very individual because of the free expression in decoration.

I like the onion-like lines on the spoon to the far right.  Look at the negative space created by the length of white left on each handle.

With the two strong forms of the linear handle and the roundness of the bowl, there are two opportunities for endless decorations.


A slight segway here--

I have a 'thing' for shells. So, of course, I love these two examples of silver spoons with a shell motif.

Spoons, Part III - Ceramic Spoons and Glazes

One idea is to make different shapes; same glaze.  Notice each spoon has a hole in the handle for hanging.  Maybe a composition display in the kitchen?

I like the homey looking blue and cream utility spoons here. Strainers, measurers, dippers, salt spoons, scoops, lots of uses for a well-glazed, washable tool.

Great use of theme and variation. 

Owl spoons. So Picasso-esque.

Embossing with stamps makes interesting, if maybe not-so-practical spoon bowls.

Great breaks in the glaze on these spoons.

Spoon or spoon rest? You decide.

Simply charming spoon.  

Do you see the little man?

A child would absolutely love this.

Medium and Large Sized Bowls

Seems as though people make either small bowls or really big bowls. I hardly see medium bowls at shows. Yet, these bowls are sometimes the most useful.

It may have to do with kiln fit--small bowls can be placed around the perimeter; big bowls take a lot of kiln room, but are more impressive and therefore can be more expensive. Medium bowls are sort of misfits.

"Geographic Bowl"

This is a bowl I made in another studio setting than my own. It was an experiment with a different clay and different studio glazes. It's good to work with unfamiliar materials sometimes.

(Unfortunately, it is no more--lost when we had the flood and the packers didn't know how to pack pottery.)

It was about 6-7 inches across and of medium depth. Very handy size.

"Snowflake Bowl"  

This is another glaze test mostly. And it is a slightly bigger and deeper bowl than the previous one. The white glaze was poured in first, then the maroon glaze rolled around the rim. Great contrast where both glazes overlapped and were poured out.

"Gold Leaf Demo"

I love this bowl. It's totally useless, but I just like to look at it.

I was doing a demo about how to apply gold leaf and used this earthenware bowl to show the contrast in surfaces.

Come to think of it, since this is a non-utilitarian bowl, I wonder if another surface application like acrylic paint would be added to either the leaf or sealed earthenware???

Could be interesting.

"Flower Bowl"

Here's where painting with glaze works. The base is a yellow matt glaze. I decided to add green organic-like leafy applications and then use a stain for the darker cobalt blue and brown accents. 

This is a medium to large bowl, quite shallow, but with a larger circumference. This bowl barely left my hand in one of my first shows when it was snapped up. 

"Great Wall of China"

This very large bowl was a challenge. It is a monster. All hand-formed, it was made using a big, awful orange plastic mid-century salad bowl as a mold for the top and a paper pattern for the base. I worried quite a lot about getting a good fit between the two parts and about firing it, but it all went well.  This piece is still in my collection. It is worth an encore, I think.  

The glaze is Coyote Shino. It was murder to glaze; very cumbersome.

"Big X Bowl"

A very early piece, this is another bowl made using hand building over a form. Early in my claywork, I used mostly white or clear glazes, focusing mainly on form. It was quite large. The black glaze was slapped on using a big paintbrush. A second layer of a plumb brown glaze was laid on over that with a smaller brush. 

I made this after working on another piece that required very detailed and meticulous work. It's good to lash out on something else a bit, just to release that energy.

Not pictured here are bowls made using a blowtorch while throwing on the wheel to hasten the drying of the clay. Although a bit frightening at first, the Ken Turner workshop I took some years ago dispelled all that fear and I love to make whopper bowls using this method. Ken is doing a workshop on foil sagger firings right now. You can find him on the web.

The good thing about medium to large bowls is the opportunity to work with a bigger pallet and surface; make a bolder and a more eloquent statement. And, as in the "Snow Bowl" and the "Flower Bowl" expand experiments on a larger surface.

Funny Little Pot

So here's a variation on two themes:  Surface treatment and the handbuilt pot.

I used a sea shell, a shred of some kind of plastic car-light part picked up in a parking lot, a wooden stamp, a piece of styrofoam packing and the end of a dowel.


The handbuilding was intentionally un-square.

It was okay to overlap the celadon glaze.

I have no idea what it could be used for.  But that's for the buyer to figure out.

How to put a Wine Glass on a Ray Gun

I made this Ray Gun........

It is porcelain with assembled wheel-thrown components, a hand made grip, fired to cone 6 with a clear glaze.

I added a piece of glass into the end. But somehow, it still just didn't have any punch.....

I thought about adding a cold glaze finish, but decided to wait because somehow, that wasn't the solution either.

So one day, I was cleaning out my wine storage cellar in the basement........

And I saw these disposable wine glasses. The cup halves were all stacked together, one inside the other and the bases were all snapped together. The cup part and the stem base pieces are supposed to join together to make a whole wine glass.

I kept thinking I liked the appearance of all the bases stuck together. They looked like something entirely different than wine glass bottoms.

I had another ray gun out in my studio in three pieces, waiting to be assembled.

This ray gun had been fired in three pieces because I wanted to experiment with adding other components.

I took the wine glass bases out to the studio.

I held the ray gun together in my hand and tried the bases in several configurations.

I liked the way the wine glass bases and the sectioned ray gun looked when it was all assembled.

I glued the whole ray gun together with Goop.

So next,I took the wine glass top pieces out to the studio.

I stuck one on the front of the first ray gun.

It looked great.

But how do you glue a wine glass to a ray gun so it looks 'finished'?.

First, I drew the outline of the cup. Then I squeezed glue onto the outline.

I put the lip of the cup over the glue to make a 'marriage' of the plastic cup and the porcelain flange.

I lined the flange with a continuous line of glue and placed the wine cup over the end of the ray gun.

I held it together.

For a long time.

It Worked!

Don't tell anybody it's a plastic wine glass, okay?