Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

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.

 

 

Painting on Walls Again

Bricks for the Bar

Bricks for the Bar

A quick update to show a recent project. My friend Jared is finishing half of his basement and wanted me to paint a small section of wall and make it look like old bricks. He’s putting an 8 ft. bar in front of the little cutout. He already has a little TV up in the corner and the mason jar lights are pretty cool. It should look pretty awesome when he gets it finished.

Bricks Closeup

Bricks Closeup

The photos aren’t that great but I think it turned out pretty well. The wall was already stamped with a brick texture pattern which made it easy to paint the mortar dark gray and the bricks dark red. Then I went back and added a little texture and “age” and added a few shadows under the bricks to add some depth.

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!

Logo Mugs

I recently glaze fired a bunch of drinking vesels.  Mostly mugs and cups with some sort of logo emblazoned across at least one side of each. Overall a solid firing with a few spectacular pieces.  All wheel-thrown stoneware fired to cone 6.

Little Chargers

A majority of the vessels were of the “Little Charger” variety. I had some orders from before Christmas and I made a few extra mugs and a couple handle-less cups/pencil holders.

(Big?) Chargers

A staff member or two suggested that I make some mugs with the charger-riding-a-horse logo that the middle and high schools use. I ordered a stamp and tried it on a few different forms with a couple different glaze combinations.

PBL and Boberosa Gun Dogs

This glaze firing was the beta test for a few new logos. Partners Bulk Logistics is a fantastic trucking company and the fine folks at Boberosa Gun Dogs train and board hunting dogs.

Notes

  • The Coyote Glaze “Really Red” is appropriately named.
  • I wish Coyote made a “Really Orange” which was just as bright.
  • Brushing on glaze is STILL a pain compared to dipping and pouring.
  • My favorite logos resulted from applying glaze to the impressed logo lines and then wiping off the excess glaze to reveal bare clay around the logo.
  • Going from Red Gloss (more of a dull, cool red) to Really Red (brighter and warmer) was quite a jump. I love the Really Red but I think it overpowers the Sapphire Blue glaze which it is usually paired with. Maybe I’ll have to find a brighter blue glaze.
  • Glazes used:
  • Coyote – Really Red, Sapphire Blue, Eggshell, Alabaster Satin, Pam’s Blue, Saturated Iron, Orange, Red Gold
  • Amaco – Red Gloss, Frosted Turquoise (not pictured)
  • Mayco – Stoneware Copper Wash, Stoneware Iron Wash (referred to as “stains” in the descriptions)

There were a few non-logo items in the glaze fire. I’ll try to put up a short post with these items including mugs, tumblers and yarn bowls.

Sectionals Shirt Design

I was asked by the Shirt Shack to design a shirt for the West Noble girls basketball team to wear during the current sectional tournament.  They were looking for a two color design.  I had complete freedom of design but not a lot of time to do it.  I came up with three options using Adobe Illustrator.

Lady Chargers Sectionals Design

Lady Chargers Sectionals Design

The design that they liked also happened to be the one that I liked best.  Pretty simple concept.  I tried a bunch of different strokes and line options for the basketball.  The font is Edo SZ found at dafont.com.  It looks even better as a shirt.  The Lady Chargers had a bye in the first round and beat Wawasee to reach the sectional finals.  Good luck tonight girls!

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