Wednesday, October 15, 2014

An Interlude with Clay


I'm back to clay for a while, and here's my first effort in this new batch.  Obviously, it's a vase.  It's about 8" tall with two polar bears at the top.  The pattern on the front is snowflakes from a variety of rubber stamps.  The bear on the right is boosting himself upwards by stepping on a snowflake that sticks out somewhat from the vase.
I pressed the stamps into the clay after I formed the vase, and this was a mistake.  Even though I had my other hand on the inside of the vase behind the stamp, I wasn't able to get a nice clear impression.  At that point, though, I really didn't want to start over as it had been quite an effort to build this vase - which I did with clay slabs.  So I just decided to go with it and lesson learned for the future!
I'm still thinking about what glazes I'll use.  I have a pretty celadon crackle which might be nice for the body of the vase.  But that decision is in the future - after drying and bisque firing.
Whenn I began this project I realized that it didn't quite make "sense."  Why would you use a vase in the winter time?  What would you put in it?  Would the contents obscure the bears?  Well, we'll just have to see.  I think bare winter branches might be one nice possibility.  Or perhaps those fake branches that have little lights on them...

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