Sep 24, 2009

S E T B A C K S - A N D - P R O G R E S S

pottery has started back up! but I missed the first class due to a schedule change, then there was this:



this was taken this morning, a week and a day after the initial incident where my thumb and an x-acto knife got in a MUUUUCH too close conversation. I'm fine. no stitches (just some glue), but it's healing very slowly and well, has put a damper on throwing. luckily I had 4 pieces thrown before this happened, so I got to experiment a little with something new: slip inlay. basically what you do is this:
1. you throw a pot

2. you let it dry and become "leather-hard"

3. you trim the bottom, like normal

4. then you carve on it. whatever you want.
5. you then cover the carving with clay which has been thinned out (so you can paint it on) and stained different colors.
6. you then carefully scrape away the extra clay to reveal the design, sitting nice and snug in your carving.

here's a few pics of my work in progress. I
can't wait to see these done. I might be hooked on this process.

step 5. covered with colored slip (this will end up black after firing):


after step 6 (same design on this piece as bowl in last pic):


close up of scraped piece: