Monday, June 15, 2009

home

I'm back from my weekend at the Llano show. The sales were very good considering how small the show is. We did quite well and the show far exceeded our expectations but strangely enough we sold only larger pieces...usually at these small shows it's nothing but cups and soup bowls...which is mostly what I took with me and then had to turn around and bring home. That's okay though, I'm just about out of large jars and platters now so it's nice to make those knowing that I need them. Speaking of which... I made a bunch of platter/bowls today of varying size.

I'm doing a show in Rockport on the 4th of July weekend. Rockport is down on the coast, near Corpus Christi and Port Aransas. I'm doing a firing right before we head down there that will be full of glazed work. I have nothing but slipped work right now and it doesn't sell too well near the ocean so I'm going to try to have a chunk of the ash glazed work to take with me. Speaking of ash glazes... I have figured out that putting the ash glaze over a white slip that has a good bit of silica in it makes the glaze look better in the wood kiln, that was kind of a "duh" moment for me.

That is all I have for now, I haven't replaced my camera cable yet so no photos...maybe tomorrow.

Cheers.

6 comments:

klineola said...

Hey Brandon. Trying to catch up on everything I've been missing. A Big Congrats on your first anniversary. Way to go.

The new wheel looks great. I lined my wheel with some kind of heavy duty epoxy paint. Can't remember. Also painted the same stuff on the fly-wheel. It's about 11 years old and looks like it might last at least another lifetime..But I polyurethaned the frame and it looks like , well, poly...

I'm glad you're enjoying continued success with your beautiful pots and look forward to reading more. Cheers.

Joe and Christy said...

congrats on a the show. Nothing gets you motivated to make more pots like a good show. A high silica slip? White slip? Looking forward to pictures.
Joe

Anonymous said...

congrats on the show... funny how that works about people buying what you thought they wouldn't, i can never guess what someone might like

brandon phillips said...

thanks for stopping by everyone.

joe-i use a 1:1:1:1 white slip thinned down to something like 2% milk. it lets a little bit of the clay body peek through still. my clay has no free silica in it(in fact it's low in silica overall) and my ash glaze is low in silica so the slip makes it look a little nicer i'm assuming because of the high silica content.

Joe and Christy said...

I'm not familiar with the 1:1:1:1 slip formula.... clay, feldspar, silica, and ...?
Certainly silica makes a huge difference in the ash glaze. I used the same 4:4:2 ash glaze that you use when I was in NC but I used a local clay in the glaze that was very high in silica. I taught a couple workshops at and used the same glaze but with a different clay. It always looked completely different than I expected. It took me a while to figure it out. It just needed more silica.
Joe

brandon phillips said...

equal parts: silica, ball clay, kaolin, feldspar.

every batch of ash i've had has been a little different. some have fired out beautifully...this current one just needs a little help.