Post #636849 by swizzle on Thu, May 17, 2012 2:55 AM

Thanks Wendy. I'm very happy with the trade i made.

Thank you Bowana. I'm extremely flattered to receive a compliment from you.

G'day everyone. Picked up a few more mugs today so here they are.

This first mug is one i wanted to test on. It has black glaze painted onto the eyebrows and goatee (i roughed them up with sandpaper) and then wiped back and then has been glazed with the same lime green i have glazed a few mugs before with, however i wanted to try spraying it. Although it is actually a brush-on glaze, with a little added water to dilute it so it wouldn't block up the spray gun, it worked out fine so i'm very happy with the outcome. There is a small glaze skip on the top edge however which will need to be touched up and re-fired.

Lime Green and Paris Green interior.

Next up is a couple of custom mugs for some friends. The first is for a friend who is the brand ambassador for 666 VODKA. He requested white on the inside so that you could see the colour of the drink which made sense. The 6's aren't quite perfect but they are basically the same font as the logo. I had to freehand them from a pic off the computer.
The second mug is for Watango. I'm buying one of his most recent carvings he's made and figured making a trade would knock a few $$$ off for me. Both the guys liked the rough wood grain finish on a couple of my last mugs so that's what they asked for.

Rockingham Brown and Oyster Speckle White.

Rockingham Brown and Lime Green.

These next few mugs are part of my 'new', 'Grey Series'. :D I have to say that i'm very,very happy with how all three of these turned out. I added some black(powder)stain to the slip so that i could play with textures on the outside which i then would only have to glaze with a clear over the top. After the mugs had dried they lost a lot of colour so i thought i was going to have to add more stain to the slip however after being fired with the clear on top they darkened up again. I'll probably still try making another darker batch though.
As the mugs are grey i figured carving rocks into one of them was a no-brainer. I was quite excited by this mug as i was carving it and i'm really happy with the result. Although it's not orange it kinda looks 'Thing' from The Fantastic Four so that's what i'm calling it.

(All these mugs have had black glaze brushed on and then been wiped back.)

Mauve and ummmmm......black and clear matte.

This mug has been textured with a steel wool scrubbing pad. There's a couple of spots where i sprayed the glaze on too thick because i didn't move the gun around enough but that is something i put down to a learning mistake. Unfortunately the pics are a bit blurry so it doesn't show up in the photos but the profile pic gives you an idea of what the surface looks like.

Dusky Pink interior.

And finally, my attempt at 'Fat Lava'. The information i could find on the net and what has been given to me from local ceramicists on that style/technique has been very minimal. As i don't have my own kiln it makes it impossible to really experiment, however one of the guys who works where i get my mugs fired gave me a very interesting tip which is what i tried on this mug. Unfortunately that's something i want to keep to myself although i'm sure some of the mug makers out there probably have an idea of how i achieved this effect.
I wasn't quite sure of this mug but as i was glazing it i could see it coming together and having some potential. When i picked these mugs up today this is the first one i pulled out of the box to look at and i have to say, i love it. This finish is something i'll definitely be playing around with more.

Paris Green interior.

That's it for now. I have a handful of mugs to glaze which will then need to be dropped off to be fired so i'll be back in a few weeks.

Cheers
swizzle

[ Edited by: swizzle 2012-06-08 06:13 ]