Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

Glaze Fire Results – October 2012

Here are some of the highlights of the load I pulled out of the kiln in late October. Actually, you can see some of the mugs in the Zombie Run post.

But here is some of the best non-sculptural work:

All functional ware. All wheel thrown with Warm Brown Stoneware and glaze fired to ^6.

Pretty good results overall. I like the combination of the Waterfall Brown and Licorice glazes (both from Mastering Cone 6 Glazes). I also mixed up a small amount of the Glossy Clear Liner to use on the inside of some pots.

As for form, I feel like I’ve got a pretty good variety in this load. I’m still refining a lot of things but I’m making progress.

I’ve got a bunch of pots downstairs drying that I hope to get finished for Christmas. I’ve also got some more posts to publish on the blog here. Hopefully soon! Thanks for reading.

August Glaze Fire Results

I’ve got some images of pots from my August glaze fire. Below are some of my favorites:

All wheel thrown stoneware with cone 6 glazes. Mostly Celadon Blue and Saturated Iron by Coyote. You can check my Facebook Page for a few more pots.

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Ceramic Decals – First Attempt

ceramic decals

ceramic decals

I learned a little bit about ceramic decals in the surface class I took this past summer at the Goshen Clay Artist’s Guild. During the class I spent most of my time working with the crystalline glazes and never got a chance to try the decals.

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Mixing Glaze

Hooray for Spring Break! Last night we made a trip to our top tourist destination: Goshen, IN. So now I’ve got the rest of break to get some work done. I’m mixing glaze today. I hope to mix up some test batches from some of my glaze books in the next few days and fire the kiln before Saturday.

Mixing Glaze

Mixing Glaze

I bought 10lbs. of Coyote’s Sapphire Blue in powder form and I just mixed that. I’ll let it sit until tomorrow and then glaze some mugs. The Sapphire Blue is pretty smooth. I used exactly 2 gallons of water with the 10lbs. of powder which put it at about 1360 on my homemade hydrometer which is where I like my two previous dipping glazes. I’ll probably add a little more water tomorrow because I don’t want it too thick. It went through an 80 mesh sieve with almost no pushing it through the screen. The particles must be nice and small. I’m glad I wrote that article about mixing glazes because it is not only a nice resource but I remember the process much better after doing it and writing about it.

I’ve got a post almost finished with some photos of recent logo mugs that will be up soon. Be on the lookout for that and remember I also post some shorter updates on my facebook page.

 

 

The Rest of the First 2012 Glaze Fire

The previous post was about mugs with logos.  There were a few other items in the first glaze fire of 2012:

Not pictured: a small teardrop shaped vase, a Charger mug that turned out terribly, and a large mug with some stamped patterns.

I got a little tired of making mugs at one point so I wanted to try a different drinking vessel. I decided to make some tall handle-less forms. I’ll call them tumblers unless someone else has a better name for these tall cups. I feel like tumblers should have straighter sides.  I haven’t actually tried drinking out of them yet but I like how they turned out. My wife wasn’t as impressed and thinks they look like they should be used by kings and queens of the medieval times. Maybe if I dig a moat around the house?

I also wanted to make some yarn bowls to put on my shelf in the Stone Soup Emporium. I made three but I broke one before I could get it bisque fired and one has been donated to the Jefferson Elementary silent auction tomorrow. I’ll probably make a few more. I like how the glaze turned out on the inside of these two.

One of the best parts of the glaze fire was doing a little experimenting and enjoying the results. A while ago I wrote of mugs with poor attachments. A few were salvaged and survived the bisque fire so I decided to experiment with some glaze application. I dipped the two mugs in Saturated Iron to cover the outside. Then I brushed a patch of Eggshell on both sides of one and Alabaster Satin on both sides of the other. On top of these white squares I brushed a quick design with a black wash. The wash and glazes melted together a little bit and I think it adds some interest to each mug.

This weekend (hooray for presidents!) I hope to start cranking out another batch of logo mugs. I’ve been absent from the clay studio for the past week or so except to reclaim some clay and haul a couple boxes of new clay down to the bench. Here’s to getting dirty!