Wednesday 22 June 2016

Ceramics





Welcome to my new Ceramics blog.


Please check me out on Facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/minigaardens



Happy to make an unusual gift as a
small sculpture or other form from clay.


Please message me your details here 
or on my Mini Gardens Ceramics page.


 Please follow my 
blog on Raku firing.



Raku, I love your quirky colours, effects, results.
Ask me more about this Japanese art.



Raku Firing Workshop 
May 2016



 It was a cold day to start with 
and we all needed
lots of hot drinks to keep us going.




It was a group of about ten
 and it was a lot of fun.



This is the special outdoor
 gas fired kiln
which all our pre-made bisque 
fired work was placed in.


Work inside red hot raku kiln




 It is heated slowly and the work is fired
 at quite a high temperature.



This takes a long time. The effects are
 really cool and worth waiting for.

This area had to be created
vegetation cut back, 
to allow the area to be safe


One of my pots I have glazed
on the inside


See how it is transformed below.





This has been fired and looks
like nothing right now


but when it has cooled I can put
on gloves and 
gently remove the
burnt black from the pot

and it will shine and look amazing.






Here you can see how I have brought
out the shine on the pot.




I love the effect you see from a Raku firing. 

The glaze looks crazed and is so cool.



The art of Clay.
What is the story?




Clay has been discovered over 
thousands of years, 
in the ground.



It is an amazing natural material which 
can be used in so many ways.



Pottery back in Roman times was 
quite advanced considering there
was so much less available to mould and 
create with.



But we know how adaptable 
The Romans were.





I love to look at ancient artefacts 
found in museums
all over the place. 

It gives me a lot of inspiration.




St Albans museum has an amazing 
array of potsand finds it is well worth a visit.




The British Museum in London has 
a whole floor dedicated to
ceramics, glass and a lot more.







One of my first small pieces of sculpture
I made during the 
summer 2016.



I really enjoyed making 
this 'Lady in Cloak'.



There is something really enjoyable
 about working with this 
fabulous medium of clay.





Working with a gritty type of clay

creating 'heads' in clay.





Clay is an amazing 
natural material to work with.



It is such a cool medium. 
It is soft, flexible and
comes in so many textures allowing 
us to create
all kinds of pieces of art work.

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