assignments

On my way out to the studio, but first I want to respond to Ron's comment (uh oh, that is how it all goes bad, "before I go out to the studio I will…" But I WILL go out as soon as I finish this short post! : )

Tony is studying low fire these days. They may move into an urban setting for their retirement years and that precludes wood firing! And he says he is becoming attracted to the glazes and color opportunities of low fire. So we did a lot of looking at earthenware pieces in the Asian collection. I've been doing a bit of earthenware work lately (focused on baking pieces for my own kitchen) but thinking I'd get back into ^6 soon. After the visits with Tony I'm thinking of doing a bit more investigation of the low-fire work.

Of my work that is around the house Tony was most attracted to and complimentary of this piece:

So he outlined some explorations for me to pursue based on it. This was done in ^6 but he is suggesting I work in ^04 for now. First assignment was to make the same bowl--same size--but change the height of the pedestal base: taller, shorter. Make 5 of these variations.

Then he suggested playing around with the placement of the sprigs:

The split rim should be opened up more. Then try sprigs on the outside also; then only on the outside; then push the rim in toward the center at the sprig points to form a scalloped or flower shape.

The same changes with the sprigs on the base. But also try putting the sprigs high up on the pedestal, not at the base.

He also gave me some glazes to test and he proposed that I cover the test bowls with white slip and then 'load' the sprigs with colored glaze that runs down the inside of the bowl, same idea with the sprigs placed high on the pedestal.

Well, that is the short version of my assignment list! So I'm off to the studio to get started--I picked up another box of low fire clay yesterday so I'm ready to get to work.

Note: Apologies for the poor quality photos. I'm using my iPhone for these--not wanting to take the time to get out a real camera and set up for better photos. Sorry.