Post #695730 by TikiAno on Mon, Oct 7, 2013 11:04 PM

Since I never posted photos, here's MDM's Headhunter Harbor hanging tile as greenware (before it was fired):

Glazing. First I painted black over the cracks and wiped off the excess, then added a brown glaze on top of that. I used another glaze for the letters, hoping for an interesting look (this glaze can be unpredicatble), then some white for the skull. I later painted facial features on the skull (modeled after Mike's original HH Harbor face):

Here's also a quick catch-up of a pendant I made for the San Diego Ohana meet-up, organized by John/ TikiSlinger. The group meets the first Monday of every month at the Bali Hai. I was hurrying up to get them finished for tonight's meet-up. Now that they've been handed out to those in attendance I can post these photos. They are my first press mold, and came out looking particularly rustic. Thanks to Dave (Bowana) for seeing them midway through and giving me great advice for future pendants. I was a royal pain in the rear to attach rings onto the pendants so they'd hang straight on the rope, but did help its presentation. Hopefully someone will post some pics in that thread on the California events page for this group since I didn't take any photos of folks wearing these things. Anyway....

First I carved out a design in negative form (I had traced out the Padres logo to get close (but not an exact replica) to represent our home town... It should be noted that carving "in negative" is something that I probably don't want to repeat...

I made a few different designs, waiting to see how the pressed stamp would look after they were bisque fired. I broke an earlier version when I tried to press it when it was too dry. Oops. Eventually the final press mold felt left out, and made me accidentally knock it off the table, cracking it- though it might be able to be epoxied back together (just don't tell IT that).

I then threw a slab and started pressing stamps. The white powder on some of the ones in the photo is corn starch, it helped keep the clay from not sticking onto the stamp:

Eventually I had a good amount and put them on plaster and drywall to dry out: My pressing technique improved as I went on- but at least the variance adds a slight air of mystery to all of the finished pieces (as in "why does this look so bad?")

These were then bisque fired and glazed. I scrubbed off some of the glaze off of the top layer- the glaze i chose (multiple coats) comes out lighter in thicker applications, and darker in thinner ones. I wanted the raised logo and "Ohana" to stand out from the rest of the stamp. Each one looks a little different since all the pieces were scrubbed/ sanded by hand. Here are a few:

Time to get going on the Art Swap piece, as well as a few other ideas....