Post #608449 by danlovestikis on Thu, Sep 29, 2011 8:55 AM

Hi Q-tiki, thank you and welcome to my thread. All of my art photos are on my Gallery Thread. Wendy in the title and danlovestikis as the author.

Hi Vamp, thank you. I did the sign for our Sacramento Crawl next week.

Hey Mike you always make my day.

Ok, here goes. The first bowl I've made went to Gecko in Hawaii. He's eventually going to make the set in red dirt to look like Treasure Craft. I'm doing the version with the hand painted women and different bowls. I'll be experimenting with different styles.

This is the bowl that went to Gecko.

#1 Step by Step

A bag of clay is as air pocket free as you can hope for. So I did not kneed it. I started by dropping the bag on its corners to round it.

I did it to each corner.

Bag removed.

Next I rotated it on the table to further round it.

Using my thumb I pressed the clay forward and into these areas. I was extremely careful to not introduce air pockets. I don't want explosions in my kiln.

Using a wire I cut the angle for the bottom.

I set the removed clay into a bag to keep it from drying out. I picked this up and flipped it over and onto a rotating wheel. I can't recall what they are called but you can see it at the top right of the screen.

I had an idea of how large I wanted the mouth so I used these potters cookie cutters to map it out.

There are different sizes. They actually started the first cuts into the clay.

Using another cutting tool I began to scoop out the clay I needed removed.

The basic mouth is carved out.

Now I went to work on the design. I forgot to take photos of how I pressed my thumbs into the clay behind the head. I did this until I was able to form a platform for the Missionary's Downfall woman.

I added a tongue, nose, eye slits and a triangle at the top of the head.

Once it has dried to leather hard I will be removing more clay. It's important to have all the walls the same thickness so when fired the bowl will not crack. There are many thick areas in this design that will require clay removal.

Since the back platform is soft I backed it up to a bag of clay for support while it dries. I will make the bottom of this platform level for the woman when it is dry.

I will uncover the bowl for a couple of hours and then uncover for a couple. This will go on until it is completely dry. As soon as it's stable I'll start to remove the excess clay.

Comments?

Soon I'll start on bowl #2. Cheers, Wendy

[ Edited by: danlovestikis 2011-10-01 17:39 ]