Rock tests from D & G

I"ve taken a quick break from making and done some tests on the rocks I collected from Dumfries an Galloway last month. This tile is a series pf simple lineblends on 5 of the igneous rocks I found. Firing Saturday.

throwing and distorting

It's been a fantastic week. Solid making making making. Love it!
Here's a film of me making one of my new forms.

Making and burning

Is this the summer? Please let there be more after the traditional Easter cold spell.
With the sun on my face I've been crushing Scottish mudstone ready for the ball mill, crushing secondary kaolin and (far more enjoyably) actually making some work for the next firing.

This clay is the high carbon (coal) Devon clay that I pictured earlier. It's still pretty coarse and therefore difficult to work with - hence the burner. This piece is only about 40cm tall but needed to be made in 4 stages. Film coming.

The big idea

Here's a vid interview....

...me talking about the idea behind my new work.

Two posts in two days!

What's going on? must be the warm weather giving me a new energy.
The gas kiln is packed and ready to go - for a biscuit firing. the bottom shelf is full of rocks that I collected from Galloway.

Quiet a variety of rocks I collected from that quick trip. It'll be interesting to see how they react in a glaze firing.
This second photo is of crushed and sieved secondary kaolin that I'm making into grog. It is an attempt to stop these highly kaolinitic clays from firecracking so much. I will biscuit fire 3 of these dish fulls then assess the hardness + maybe stoneware fire it.

Definitely the hard + slow way of making clay!

Back from the North

The weekend at Kindrogan with the Scottish Potters was great fun. Absolutely beautiful place, seemingly miles from anywhere, and the weather was fantastic. Such a relief to feel some warm sun on my skin. The demonstrations went well - no major collapsing disasters and I didn't embarrass myself at the Ceilidh (I don't think).
Back home and it's straight into clay body preparation for my next firing. This is clay making the hard and slow way.

The clay I'm preparing today is a carbonaceous clay from Devon that is like a rock. I have to crush it first, then slake it with water. This softens it but fails to make it plastic, so I have to re-crush it later. It is too coarse to go through the pugmill - and I am making relatively small batches as I don't have that much of it. I'm not blunging and sieving it as I want the variation in the clay that its unground texture gives in the firing.

Sitting here after a few days of this I can hardly move my right hand (left hand typing!)

Way up north....

I'm on my way to Kindrogan to do a demonstration weekend for the Scottish Potters + stopped off for a couple of days with Hannah Macandrew to explore + collect new samples
from.

It really is an absolutely beautiful area, plus incredibly geologically varied. There are some extremely old Silurian sedimentary rocks and igneous intrusions of granite, then various other increasingly basic volcanic intrusions. There are miles and miles of rugged mountains and a stunning coastline as varied as the geology: sandy stretches of beaches, rocky cliffs and desolate mudflats.

Pretty amazing lichen too.

It's great to stay with Hannah too + see her wood kiln + lovely pots.
Next stop Kindrogan....