Decorating a Pot

Ceramic Examples

View more presentations from Frank Curkovic.

Some Examples

Turkish Ceramics

View more presentations from İbrahim DAL.

Painting and Glazing

This is most definitely my favourite part of the process. Glazing is pretty easy as the glaze has already been prepared and the paints are also ready-made. The colours will be pretty much the same as it looks now  as to when the vase has been fired. It can get pretty complex if I decide to create my own blend of colours like Paul Jackson. I love his works and hope to be able to apply his style to my biggest pot. For now, it's just a simple green to accentuate the leave and the rest is awashed in white to provide the contrast. My precious vase. Still conservative here as this is my first time colouring. Mmm..I thought that I was a risk-taker. What's going on here...maybe I will make more pots and find the courage to try out everything and anything.

All Fired Up

There are a few types of kiln firing. During the course I learnt about Bisque and Glaze firing. For Bisque Firing, the pots must be bone-dry and then packed into the kiln. The stacks can be stacked on each other or props and shelves can be used to create levels. There are three main cycle to take note of. In the first cycle, pots are fired steadily for 6 hours at the rate of 100 deg celsius per hour. Steam from the moisture in the pots will start to form and the flue cover will have to be removed. It can be replaced before the next cycle.

At the next cycle, the clay morphs into ceramic. It will fire continuously till it reaches the temperature of 1000 deg celsius at the rate of abt 110 deg celcius. This will take around 3.5 hrs. The last cycle is where the pots are left to soak in the remaining heat for about 15-20 mins. Below is a drawn cross sectional view of a kiln.

My Slab Box

Slab-Building

Slab-building is a way of creating geometrical forms of ceramics. To begin, I shaped a huge lump of wedged clay into a cube. This is done by rotating it to the sides, forming it into a cube (in my case, a cuboid). It is then placed on a folded piece of newspaper, with a yardstick on either side. The yardstick is used to guide my cutting wire which is used to slice even slabs out of the clay cube. This step is repeated until I have 6 + a few extra slabs for back-up purposes. Once they are leather-hard, these slabs will be used to form the box. The edges of these slabs are beveled at about 45 degrees angle all around. This is done with a ruler and a pen-knife. The surface of the edges are scored and given some slit before they are joined together. Score and smoothen out the joints. I did not have time to take the pictures as I'm busy with work but I will put some good links up soon.

The Big One

The big coiled pot is finally up. I was admiring my pot when the shadow of my side profile fell on it. It was a moment of relief as I suddenly got the inspiration to carve out my profile onto my pot. I will post more pictures up soon but for now, these picture shows the pot in the making.