Unit 90

UNIT 90 

This unit was one of the first main ceramic projects that I have produced  in November 2014. This project is the one that  made me realise that ceramics is the type of work I wanted to create and what direction I wanted to go with my work. 

The first image you can see is of three thin slabs of clay that have been rolled out to about a centimetre thickness and then laid on top of one another. After this I then started to cut and press into the clay. (You see the pattern in the second image).

In this piece you can see the pattern I have cut and pressed into the clay. I the idea for this pattern was inspired from a plastic cup. I started out with just using circles, but then I started to over lap the circles and my pattern expanded by using a wooden rod to press the smaller circles into the clay. I then found some really nice shaped pieces of wood and I found that they were successful with my pattern.

In this image you can see the clay with the pattern but with four pieces of paper around it, this is to square the clay off so I can get an idea of where I wanted to cut the pattern ready for creating a plaster mold. 

This image is a close up of the image before I cut the clay.

The image above shows the neat cut version of what my pattern should look like after I use the plaster mold to get my tile design.

I took this next picture to show the walls around the pattern ready for the plaster to be poured over the top and harden.

THEN AFTER THE PLASTER MOLD HAD HARDENED, I REMOVED THE CLAY AND PUT WHAT WAS REUSABLE INTO THE MIXED CLAY BUCKED TO BE REWORKED INTO RECLAIMED CLAY. 

After my plaster mold was finished I started to make some stoneware tiles from the mold, I let these harden on some old plaster slabs. I made two plain tiles and then cut around the edges to make them more neat. 

Tile two.

With this next image I used some crushed pieces of hard clay and sprinkled them over the top of the plaster mold and then I added the soft stoneware clay over the top and pressed down which embedded the hard clay into the soft combined which the pattern from the plaster mold. I did this twice so I have two tiles.

Tile two.

As you can see in this photo I have used the tiles with the crushed dried clay to make a large vase, I connected the two tiles together  and blended the to edges together where they met to create a whole piece. I then added a base so that it had a bottom. As you can see in the picture the base flares out from the edge of the piece but I have cut that away so the bottom is level with the pattern. (I made two of these pieces).

This is the second piece that I have produced, its basically the same as that first one but there is just one difference. The dried crushed clay. 

Next I decided to make a statue kind of thing, where I only used one tile. I cut one tile in half and stuck each section of the tile on to a slab of evenly rolled out clay. I then cut the slab of clay into the shape I wanted and then had this fired. I curved the two sections of the tiled before I stuck them down. I made two different pieces like this but with slightly different shapes.

THE IMAGE ABOVE AND THE NEXT TWO IMAGES SHOW THE SAME PIECE JUST AT DIFFERENT ANGLES.

This image is of the second piece that I have produced and the images below are of the same piece but at different angles. These were stoneware fired.

      THE NEXT SEVEN IMAGES ARE WHAT MY PIECES LOOKED LIKE AFTER THEIR FIRST FIRING. 

These first two images are of the same piece.

These next two images are of the same piece.

These next two images are of two different pieces.

Finally this piece is what the tiles would look like. 

The image above and below are what the Raku glazes look like before they have been fired. I applied the Raku glazes with a brush. 

After I had finished using my plaster mold with the clay  I then decided to cut some float glass to the size of my mold and fire this so that the glass slumped into the mold so that the pattern from the mold formed into the glass. I found that this worked really well. 

THE NEXT THREE IMAGES ARE OF SOME SMALL ARTISTA GLASS SAMPLES THAT I HAVE PRODUCED. WITH THESE I WAS JUST TESTING OUT DIFFERENT COLOURS OF GLASS THAT GO WELL TOGETHER AND HOW WELL THEY FIRED. 

FOR ME THESE SAMPLES DID NOT FUSE AS WELL AS I WOULD HAVE LIKED. 

This piece is something that I had done during this project, when I was working at a place that made glass beads, vases, marbles,  jewellery and more. The owner allowed me to do some of my own tests during my time working there. This is made out of bullseye glass, I moulded this piece into a small plate.

The image above and below are how my raku pieces look like after they had been fired you can definitely see the change of colour differences between the not fired pieces and the fired pieces. 

The next set of the images are of the stoneware pieces after they have been glazed and fired, I have two different colours on each piece, two blues on one and green and yellow on another. 

The image above and the two below are of the same piece just at different angles.

The image above and the three images below are all of the same piece just at different angles.

The next three images are of a tile and a vase that have put some manganese oxide on and left it like that for another firing. I think that this has been a good idea and I think they have turned out really well.