My second through fourth pots

In addition to the first pot I threw, I had 3 more thrown pots that were kept through trimming, bisque firing, and glazing.  I also had a number of extrusions: soap dishes, incense holders, and planters (which I’ll post about later).  All my pots are made with Clay Planet’s Bravo Buff clay, as that is what is sold in the class, though several students were using clay purchased elsewhere.  We paid $20 for a bag of clay, which I believe was 25 pounds (11.3kg) of clay, but I didn’t weigh it.

Tiny bowl

The tiny striped bowl is about 96 mm in diameter and 35.5 mm tall. The base is about 60.5mm in diameter. The inside was painted with cobalt carbonate stripes, then had shiny milky white poured in. The outside was dipped in panama blue, then painted with a stripe of black beauty.

The stripes came out well, but the inside of the bowl could have used a little more of the shiny milky white on the bottom. The rim is about 10mm–11mm thick. The bowl weighs 178g and holds about 75ml.

The panama blue is really more a green color, and it should have been dipped twice, as the coverage is a bit patchy. There was not enough of a foot to grip with tongs, so the rim was held with fingers for the dipping. The black band was sloppily drawn (I have trouble holding a brush steady). Where the shiny milky white and the panama blue overlap, there is a good blue color—in future I might want to do one dip of shiny milky white before one dip of panama blue. I also have to be careful to make sure that I get a good coating of glaze everywhere, as the thin spots seem to have opened up to expose bare clay (or with such a thin layer of glaze that it is effectively clear).

Red footed bowl

The red bowl is about 10 cm in diameter and about 63mm tall. It had shiny milky white poured for the inside, and candy red dipped for the outside. A lot of the red disappeared in the firing, producing a transparent glaze in places.

The top rim of the bowl is rather thick (10mm–11mm), and the whole bowl is rather heavy at 295g—especially as it holds only 150ml.

The candy red came out much clearer on the bottom, as there was probably less oxygen there, even though the foot was notched in three places to make 3 separate feet.

Robin’s egg blue bowl

My widest bowl is about 132mm–135mm in diameter and about 46mm –50mm tall. The variation in height is very apparent when the bowl is filled with liquid.
The inside had one pour of shiny milky white (two would have been better) and the outside was dipped in a new glaze for the studio—robin’s egg blue.

The bowl weighs 421g and holds about 225ml. The side are 10mm–14mm thick.

I think that the robin’s egg blue really needs two dips to get adequate coverage.

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Although none of these bowls are of a quality that I would buy them, I’m no embarrassed by them as first attempts.  I hope to be able to take the class again in the fall and get a little better at both throwing and glazing.  What I need to work on most is lifting the sides better, so that the I have less-heavy pots—the bowls and mugs I have bought from professional potters are generally 4mm–5mm thick, not 10mm–14mm thick.  I may not be able to control the clay when it is that thin, but I’d like to get down to 7mm anyway.