Sculpture and Slip Trailing

Do you ever feel like you can't figure out how come you didn't get all the things done you needed to?  That was me today.  Maybe I was distracted by the gorgeous sunshine.  Actually, if I hadn't torn myself away from the computer I might have missed that it was sunny at all.  I got so distracted researching imagess and source material for an idea. I have some ideas about working with cocoons as a jumping off point for some new work.I was so engrossed with my thoughts and images that time just flew by.  Of course, I had to sit down and draw some sketches too.  After all that, I had to run and errand and then I decided I should spend a couple of hours visiting one of my best friends.  Then there was the nap and the paperwork...  I finally got to the ceramics studio about 7:00pm.    I never did make it to the print studio today. I imagine I will be too tired tomorrow after making two large trashcans worth of recycle into some pugged clay for the students. Not too mention, I really should work on the sink traps, yuck!  Hmmm, maybe prints on Monday morning?

 

  

I did work on my altered cups some more and practiced some slip trailing and stenciling.  I am having so much fun with this.  And it is my reward for working on my sculptures. Besides, if I want to fire my cone 6 sculptures I might as well have some other fun things to fill the kiln with.  Especially since I am trying to learn how to work with and fire this clay.

 

Cone 6 Porcelain sculpture.  Not really sure how I am liking this clay.  It really has a lot of talc in it which I am not used to and so attaching these pieces was a lot different than the other clays I have been working with.  I'd like to get some other cone 6 porcelains for comparison.  I have a couple more smaller sculptures but I think I will wait to see how they dry before I make anymore.  I am a little worried about them cracking at the seams.  I have made these forms with cone 10 English porcelain which I usually dry pretty slow to avoid and cracking but sometimes they do anyway.  

I met with my BFA advisor, Sue Whitmore, the other day and she suggested that I might try cutting open my forms and exploring the interior space.  This was a mini piece, only about 5 inches and I wasn't excited with the form so I decided to sacrifice it to the experiment.  Pretty interesting to see what goes on inside one of these pieces. This idea would also lend itself well to the coccoon/chrysalis ideas floating through my head. I think I will explore this more but with a more forgiving and plastic clay.