16 FFM03 First time making caremics
Festival of Fast Making
28–09–2023
Festival of Fast Making
28–09–2023
Never done ceramics before and this was the first attempt.I was a little apprehensive about walking into the workshop with the sketches, but james was really very kind, demonstrating some different ways of making them and telling me that I could make my own choices of what I thought was appropriate.
My design proposal is that I would like to make a bunch of ghostly mugs with halos on their heads (the halos just happen to act as a base for the bottom of the mugs) that all look uniformly white and hollow-eyed on the outside, wearing halos on their heads but still not very colourful. Instead, the inside would be a colourful and brilliant pattern like flowers or fireworks.
So the first challenge was to make the ghost shaped cups, and as I couldn't find a suitable mould, I had to give up the simpler method of covering the clay pieces with moulds to shape them, and instead pressed the pieces into the moulds!
This was a very difficult way for me to make ceramics for the first time, and the process of squeezing in was so easy to crack the piece of clay or not fit it into the mould in one piece that I kept repeating the process of rolling the piece of clay, pressing it into the mould, squeezing it, and re-rolling the piece of clay. After countless attempts, I finally managed to get a piece to fit into the mould.
But the challenge doesn't end there, after placing the clay piece in because you have to wait for it to dry before removing it from the mould, there is absolutely no way of knowing what you have made until you remove it.
When I took it out, unfortunately, he didn't take the shape of the ghost I wanted. But! Instead, it accidentally took the shape of a flower, and had nice folds. That's the beauty of handmade isn't it.
Of course, in addition to the unexpected floral styling haul, the ghost styling attempts still have to continue as well.
My design proposal is that I would like to make a bunch of ghostly mugs with halos on their heads (the halos just happen to act as a base for the bottom of the mugs) that all look uniformly white and hollow-eyed on the outside, wearing halos on their heads but still not very colourful. Instead, the inside would be a colourful and brilliant pattern like flowers or fireworks.
So the first challenge was to make the ghost shaped cups, and as I couldn't find a suitable mould, I had to give up the simpler method of covering the clay pieces with moulds to shape them, and instead pressed the pieces into the moulds!
This was a very difficult way for me to make ceramics for the first time, and the process of squeezing in was so easy to crack the piece of clay or not fit it into the mould in one piece that I kept repeating the process of rolling the piece of clay, pressing it into the mould, squeezing it, and re-rolling the piece of clay. After countless attempts, I finally managed to get a piece to fit into the mould.
But the challenge doesn't end there, after placing the clay piece in because you have to wait for it to dry before removing it from the mould, there is absolutely no way of knowing what you have made until you remove it.
When I took it out, unfortunately, he didn't take the shape of the ghost I wanted. But! Instead, it accidentally took the shape of a flower, and had nice folds. That's the beauty of handmade isn't it.
Of course, in addition to the unexpected floral styling haul, the ghost styling attempts still have to continue as well.
Ceramics Skills in Progress ......Roll out the clay sheet, find your desired thickness of wood piece and place it on both sides, so that you can roll out the clay sheet with even thickness (3mm would be more suitable for my cup). Roll the clay sheet from different directions, not along the same direction, otherwise uneven force and moulding direction will cause it to crack easily.
Start by gently positioning the circle using the rotary table, then scribe the waves needed for the pleats.
When joining the two parts of the clay, you need to use a knife to make cross-hatching marks on both parts of the sticking position, and then smear the same kind of clay slurry to act as a glue, and then stick them together.