Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Fired Urn

Here is how it turned out,  I was initially a disapointed because the colors didn't turn out as light as I thought they would and the detail work I did didn't stand out as much as I thought it would.  I am going to add some light glaze in the shapes and indentations and refire it this week.  What do you think?

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Glazing the Big Urn (Continued)

After applying latex over the earlier glazed shapes ...


Its time for the high pressure spray gun!


Starting with the lid, I gave the entire piece a thin even layer of glaze.


After being sprayed it looks red because the copper when fired in the glaze turns green.


The base is up next, I spin the wheel that it sits on in the spraying booth to get an even coat of glaze.


TA-DA... now there is still a lot of work to be done. 


Next I rinsed off a little bit of the extra glaze on the latex surface
 so that when it comes time to take it off it won't break as easily.


Took a needle tool and grabbed the edge of the latex and pulled it back to leave a clean shape of glaze.


All of those little pieces of latex took a while to remove, 156 in all.


So worth it, looks great so far


Let's hope it makes it through the kiln alright.
It is waiting now on the kiln cart to get fired in the reduction kiln.
 Should be fired in a week or two.  I will be back with the results!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Welcome!

Decided to make this blog to post my personal art work.  I already have a blog for my teaching and students work: http://raackartroom.blogspot.com, but I am on break from teaching this week, so I picked some studio work back up again and decided it was worth showing.  Hope you Enjoy!


Yesterday I busted out this Ceramic Urn that was hiding in the corner of my kitchen behind a table in a coffee box with a do not touch sign on it.  It had been bisque fired but not glazed yet.  So I asked my friend Kat who is also an Art Educator to help me bring it to the studio in her car, it is to heavy to carry a long distance.  We got it to the studio in one piece.  


Brought it to the SU glaze room and began laying out the glaze pattern and choosing glaze colors.


These are the two colors I decided on after looking at combinations and test tiles for about an hour. 


To get a good idea of what the final urn would look like with the glaze, I photoshopped a photograph I took with possible glaze colors and applications, until I came up with this plan.  The numbers are the glaze combinations to produce the mossy green and sea colors.  The arrows and symbols are to glazed parts you can't see, such as the top view of the handle, underneath the lid, and under the foot of the urn.


My set up: paper mat, latex, cup, brush, turn table, wet sponge, layout on computer


Following my plan I started by sketching the shapes I needed to glaze in the dark green color.


This morning I perfected my layout of shapes and latexed around them.


Glazed in the shapes, peeled off the latex around them, and applied latex over the glazed shapes.
I will glaze the remainder of the urn in the lighter color tomorrow.