Ceramics Weekend - Feb 20-22

On Friday the 20^th of February I worked on my lidded cylinder. I had to finish painting the pictures, on the cylinder with slip. I had to put three coats of slip on the cylinder; once I finished, I had to put the cylinder in the back work area to be fired in the kiln. It took me three hours to paint the slip on the cylinder. Once I put one coat of slip on, I had to wait for it to dry before I could put the next layer on. My cylinder has been in the back since that night, and it still has not been fired. Mom was knitting a preemie hat. She also used the Dremmel with a burr cup to finish off the ends of ¾” lengths of sterling silver wire she has cut to make links.

On Saturday the 21^st of February, I worked on glazing my cups and textured cylinders. We have to put the glazes on, and then the cups and cylinders are fired. It took me over two hours to glaze three cups and two textured cylinders. I first had to get the bucket of glaze out and stir the glaze with a drill and use a stick to help mix up the glazes. I first had to put the glaze inside the cup and pour it out and then I had to put another color on the outside of the cup or cylinder. I had to wait for the glaze to dry, and then wipe off a ¼ inch of the glaze from the bottom so that when it is fired it won’t stick to the bottom of the kiln. I am still waiting for the cups and cylinders to be fired. Mom was still working with the burr cup on the lengths of wire, and knitting a hat.

On Sunday the 22^nd of February I worked on putting my lidded box cylinder together. I had only planned on putting the box together. Well, I ended up constructing the whole box. That took me over three hours to work on. Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures of the construction process. I do have pictures of the box cylinder before I fired it. After constructing the box, I had two and a half extra slabs left over. I kept those slabs in case my box fell apart when fired, and I had to make a new box. I wanted the slabs ready so I didn’t have to wait for the drying out of the clay to make a new box. But since the cylinder was fired on the 2^nd of March, and the box didn’t collapse, I can finally get rid of those slabs. Yeah!!!! Mom was still knitting.