Instead of broadcasting this past firing live, I set up the webcam to shoot the entire firing and unloading, then condensed it to a few minutes. A few easter eggs to spot… a Kyle Houser Mr. T Mug, my son helps stoke, cheater heaters (forced air burners I kicked on for an hour to let me take a breather from stoking and spray soda), the top peep spitting out reduction flame (or not), a skull, some ceramic thermoses, a cool cone 9 bottom shelf, the cats playing on the trampoline in the background.
March 3, 2010
March 1, 2010
Pots from the last firing…
Here’s some of the choice pots from the last firing. I had my first orders for place settings in there and was relieved to see they all came out. The were two - five piece settings for one customer. I also have a great customer who ordered six - five piece settings that I will be sending 1 setting a month for the next six months. The bonus? She wants them all different! They don’t call me inconsistent keith for nothing, so this was music to my ears. I actually threw them all and bisqued them, so that they would all stack nicely in her cupboards, but only 3 settings were fired in this last load. The others will be done later. Pictured below is the first setting she’ll be getting.More pics on my flickr photostream.
Ah… yes, the skull came out wicked cool, and I was able to decal it over the weekend with a bunch of left over decals and poison labels.
This bowl was done using stencils cut by the craftrobo. I glazed the whole pot with malcomb’s shino, then applied the stencils and sprayed other glazes over top and them removed the stencils. Luckily this was in an area of the kiln that got great reduction.
Speaking of reduction, it was inconsistent at best (are we surprised?). I guess not really, I had my suspicions this was going to be under reduced. My son helped stoke one of the fire boxes for the last three hours. I was happy for the help, and… not that I am complaining or anything… but whereas I was more concerned with making sure I had a good flame coming out of the top peep, his primary concern was using the red hot angle iron to make steam and melt ice and snow. Of course what kid wouldn’t want to plat with red hot metal? Cool…. fire… right? Unfortunately I am paying the price for being an easy going dad, letting him experiment, and ending up with half a load of pots that were not as toasty as the other half.
I set up the webcam for this firing and unloading with the intent on multiplying the speed and shortening the video to a nice 5-8 minute video for you. Maybe we’ll even be able to see how often that flame was coming out, and how much of the time is was sucked back in 
February 25, 2010
All a Head… post firing blog post.
Of course I can’t resist a good pun. It’s the day after firing the woody, and I am tired and sore. Wierd that this is the first firing of 2010 and it seemed like it took forever. The new year is always hard for me to shift into gear, plus I’ve had some not pottery projects I’ve been working on that have been monopolizing the time. Add to that I decided to… grind all shelves and kiln wash everything (24 shelves) so I could flip them… weld new grate supports (my grates were is good condition after a years worth of firings, but the legs were falling off, so I welded some from larger gauge steel and also made it so they slide off, making it easier to pull out after the firing)… reset my arch, I had a brick slip out - yikes!… then with all the snow and rain, the ground is completely saturated, wood was damp blah blah blah excuses… My firing with generally takes 9 1/2 - 10 hours took 13, and I still the thermo never got past 2320, although cone 10/11 was down at the top and middle, the bottom cones only got to nine. After a peak in the peeps this morning, it looks like everything will be fine. My bottom shelf is always full of the runnies… celadons and copper reds, so a cone nine is usually safer than a cone 11. I know those of you who typically pull of 16-20 firing are saying wah! lol!
Anyways, that’s what I’ve been up, not online, not on twitter, not on facebook, not on etsy (can you beleive I haven’t listed anything new in over a month!). But working.
I did get my heads glazed in the electric kiln with a nice weathered bronze. All in all I am pretty happy with them and want to start on some new ones as soon as I get the chance. You’ll notice a small new one I did for experimenting with some surface treatments. The skull I did awhile back was glazed in my favorite shino (Malcomb’s of course!) along with some shino slips and sprayed glazes and fired in the woody yesterday, can’t wait to see that one!
February 4, 2010
My, what big eyes you have…
Let me just say, I have no idea where this whole portrait/sculpture thing is heading. I probably have no desire to make busts of people… or at least making them resemble actual people… but I am digging how such miniscule changes in proporation have a huge effect on ‘identity’ so bear with me…
I usually have no problems seeing, I wear glasses and all, but with the computer I can see what I am not seeing, or at least see where I am off. So having the love/hate relationship with technology that I have, I decided to compare what I had with the reference photos I was using. At the point I decided to do this, I hadn’t put hair or ears, I was strictly dealing with facial features.
At this point I was digging the mouth, cheeks and nose. I could tell the eyes were off, and over all I think the head proportion was odd. (I didn’t notice that the left side was wider than the right until I started hollowing it out, but looking at this, it was clearly asymetrical)
Layering the two in photoshop confirmed this… the eyes were two low, and too far back, the profile was looking pretty sweet though.
So I dug out the eyes, and re-did them. I wasn’t going to mess with the mouth originally, the frontal was fine, by the profile show it being to big. Unfortunately I couldn’t let well enough alone, and I think the final mouth is somewhat less expressive than this one.
Here’s the final comparison, just before hollowing out:
Eyes is still off, but placement was ‘better’.
This shot shows how putzing with the face changed the profile for the worst. I was working with some pretty soft reclaim, and was kinda wondering if it actually slumped while working. Excuses excuses!
For finishing these, I have a bucket of ‘weathered bronze‘ cone 6 glaze. I’m still waffling with glazing with a shino and decaling them up, but will probably resist that until it’s a bust of someone I don’t know.
February 3, 2010
The Assignment
Per Professor Kline… the assignment was to make 12 things before 12 noon. Should be easy right? Add in coffee, 2 hour school delay, reading people’s blogs, shooting some pics for a blog post, coffee, pre-heating the studio, checking yesterdays pots to see if they are ready to trim… trimming them… coffee, a few quick poker games and it’s not as easy as it looks! But I got it done… 4 plates, 4 cups, 4 bowls.
The Assignment… mmmm nice dark stoneware for a change…
In other news… I filled the bisque kiln yesterday, and set the sculptures on top to make sure they are good and dry so I can toss them in with another bisque today. The a pic of my daughter is also below (I think someone commented asking to see the model), as you can see the resemblence is… um… non-existant lol! But I did fix the eyes before I finished, and I think I am getting better. I did one of my son last week, it resembles him slightly better… I’ve got a blog post started as it relates to his, but there’s a quick pick on top the drying rack with other pots waiting to be bisqued.
Waiting to be bisqued
Inspiration or Lack Thereof - pt. II or ZBrush
My little brother mentioned this software awhile ago. Zbrush is basically software for making 3D models (virtual models for animation), but with modelling ‘tools’ more akin to working with clay than the archetectural/geometric tools you may have seen in software like 3D studiomax. I guess making it more intuitive for artists.
Here’s some of the recent work Dave has been doing, and it nice animation of someone working on a kid’s head…
February 1, 2010
Inspiration or Lack Thereof - pt. I… or… enough about me…
More action in the studio usually translates to less time bloggin… any given minute, time is finite ya know? So I thought that in between posts about what’s happening out in in Fletcherneck, I’d post a few quick items of some things that I’ve found inspiring.
I found this interview on Fecal Face with Meredith Dittmar - a clay artist of the polymer kind.
January 19, 2010
More Sculpturing
Head Sculpture of my daughter, originally uploaded by mudstuffing.
From this day forth, I will strive to use more nouns as verbs.
I am back home, trying to work my way out of the post holiday funk, starting with this bust of my daughter Iva that I busted out Sunday and Monday.
Get it? bust… busting… noun as verb? Never mind that’s a bad idea anyways… forget it I even made the proclamation.
It sorta resembles my daughter, however she looks about 4 years younger. Over all I am happy with it, I’ve developed a lot since my last sculpture, but still see more room for improvement particularly the eyes and the transition from the cheeks to the ears. The eyes are driving me mad… the typical hollowed out pupils you see in classic sculpture wasn’t settling well for me, and these (the final) make her look hyptnotized. I’m hoping some deep black slip on those pupils will cure it… but I’ve had bad luck trying to cure a sculptural mistake using surface decoration, so I’ll be doing an extra bit of praying prior to the firing, and moving on to the next one.
Mom? Dave? Glenn? Get your rears down here some time, I’ve got plenty of reclaim to go around!
January 10, 2010
Skull Study
Skull Study, originally uploaded by mudstuffing.
Hope your holidays were great, I’ve been purposely absent both online and in the studio, spending a little quality ‘real’ time around the holidays….
My brothers and sisters pitched in together to get my mom Philippe Faraut’s DVD series on sculpting. It’s an excellent series, and I highly recommend it. Not hat my mom really needs it, she’s a fine sculptor in her own right, but defintely has some tips and great information on anatomy and facial expressions. We previewed while at her house and I think all three of us (my little brother Dave, mom and me) were itching to get our hands on some clay to put some of this new found knowledge to use.
I decided since I had never haven’t drawn much anatomy since college, and all of that was drawing based (not 3d) I’d start with a study of the skull. I’m digging the results. I’m away in Seattle for next week, so no clay for me, but when I get back, I’ll hollow this out, start on something new, and bust out a bunch of orders I’ve been procrastinating on… I am usually creatively drained after the holidays for some reason and the last few weeks have been nothing but food, family, and a little poker. Now I am itching to getting back to producing and experimenting with new stuff.
Here’s the link the the DVD series if you are interested.
http://ceramicartsdaily.org/bookstore/dvd/the-art-of-sculpting-by-philippe-faraut-3-volume-set/
December 20, 2009
Basil Drawing on Plate
Just finished photographing and listing the items from the last firing of the year… check them all out in my etsy shop (http://khphillips.etsy.com), more to come tomorrow…
This dinner plate features an original drawing I did of basil leaves, originally for a set of pasta bowls - I did drawings of oregano, rosemary, thyme and basil.