http://pottersofmadisoncounty.com/
Here's a link to a great group of potters having a show/sale this weekend in the mountains of Western North Carolina. If you're anywhere near there, treat yourself. You won't be disappointed.
After a couple of days of cooking, plant care and computer work (finally got my documents and photo files greatly cleaned out and backed up), and some pot sketching and followup notes, I'm ready to head to the studio this morning. A small group of pots need to be waxed and slipped and more tests need to be weighed and mixed.
I'm still looking for a rich, warm yellow - either slip or glaze. Most of those I've already done are either too light or too lemon colored, which is lovely, but not what I'm looking for at this point. The color I want is like the yellow on the Victoria Christen mug I put on my blog a couple of days ago - a rich, sunshine/buttercup yellow. I've got it close with my glaze and 6% rutile; but I'm really hoping I can get this color in slip.
To that end I've been spending a lot of time looking at stain colors on line; and it's amazing how different the same stain color looks on various retail sites, so lord know what colors they will actually wind up being, once tested. Mason's Buttercup stain is the one that looks like a good possibility to explore with higher amounts of stain than I've done up until now. That's the possible good news. The bad is that that stain color is no longer available. I did find a site that lists it, so I want to test it as soon as possible and if it's what I'm looking for, I want order more of the stain while I can still get it. My other option is to do some higher percentage tests with the rutile. The 6% rutile test I did with my my clear glaze is really close, but I want to test it at 8% as well. Ideally, I'd like to get this color in a slip, so that's another test to do today - probably start at 12% rutile and then mix that 1/2 and 1/2 wet volume with my plain slip and see what it brings.
While waiting for my new Peter Pugger to arrive in another week or two, I'm going to use this time to wind up all of this testing and getting the studio ready for more pots to come. I've already re-organized a lot of things last week - moved all the test glaze batches to a shelving unit, freeing up a low, wheeled cart to use for bisqued pots which I finally moved off the slab roller; but there's that last bit of mostly little stuff that I need to find homes for. I'm thinking that I just may have to come up with a hanging shelf suspended from one of the suspended ceiling storage units we already have. I checked that out this morning and am thinking that I can get some chain and hooks and a piece of plywood or similar and suspend it over my slab roller. I saw suspended shelving similar to this at pottery studios and potters homes in Japan; and it's a good way to find that extra storage in small studios. So much to do and so little time and energy.
Here's a link to a great group of potters having a show/sale this weekend in the mountains of Western North Carolina. If you're anywhere near there, treat yourself. You won't be disappointed.
After a couple of days of cooking, plant care and computer work (finally got my documents and photo files greatly cleaned out and backed up), and some pot sketching and followup notes, I'm ready to head to the studio this morning. A small group of pots need to be waxed and slipped and more tests need to be weighed and mixed.
I'm still looking for a rich, warm yellow - either slip or glaze. Most of those I've already done are either too light or too lemon colored, which is lovely, but not what I'm looking for at this point. The color I want is like the yellow on the Victoria Christen mug I put on my blog a couple of days ago - a rich, sunshine/buttercup yellow. I've got it close with my glaze and 6% rutile; but I'm really hoping I can get this color in slip.
To that end I've been spending a lot of time looking at stain colors on line; and it's amazing how different the same stain color looks on various retail sites, so lord know what colors they will actually wind up being, once tested. Mason's Buttercup stain is the one that looks like a good possibility to explore with higher amounts of stain than I've done up until now. That's the possible good news. The bad is that that stain color is no longer available. I did find a site that lists it, so I want to test it as soon as possible and if it's what I'm looking for, I want order more of the stain while I can still get it. My other option is to do some higher percentage tests with the rutile. The 6% rutile test I did with my my clear glaze is really close, but I want to test it at 8% as well. Ideally, I'd like to get this color in a slip, so that's another test to do today - probably start at 12% rutile and then mix that 1/2 and 1/2 wet volume with my plain slip and see what it brings.
While waiting for my new Peter Pugger to arrive in another week or two, I'm going to use this time to wind up all of this testing and getting the studio ready for more pots to come. I've already re-organized a lot of things last week - moved all the test glaze batches to a shelving unit, freeing up a low, wheeled cart to use for bisqued pots which I finally moved off the slab roller; but there's that last bit of mostly little stuff that I need to find homes for. I'm thinking that I just may have to come up with a hanging shelf suspended from one of the suspended ceiling storage units we already have. I checked that out this morning and am thinking that I can get some chain and hooks and a piece of plywood or similar and suspend it over my slab roller. I saw suspended shelving similar to this at pottery studios and potters homes in Japan; and it's a good way to find that extra storage in small studios. So much to do and so little time and energy.
Mason has been discontinuing a lot of it's colors, but if you go to www.masoncolor.com/inventory.asp, they have a chart which gives the recipes for blending your own colors. Most of the discontinued colors are available there.
ReplyDeleteI saw that on their site; but fortunately I've been able to find a couple of them from some on line pottery supply stores.
ReplyDelete