clayyyy

This here blog is for stuff I made out of clay (and maybe the very occasional reblog of other people's clay stuff). Main art blog is @nolanfa; fanart blog is at @nolanfa-fanart; reblogs from other people is at @norefs

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Here below a couple things I made

Tags list: #wip : for clayworks that haven't had their final firing done (maybe also if the photograph is not of a good enough quality? We'll see) #done : for not-wips #samples : for testing - usually about glazes #medaillons : for the necklaces/small round things series #salmon snakes : for the drakes series #geometric animals : for the current series of smoked or clay-colored stylized animals ... more to come

I put sugar on this one during the smoking. It may be why it's lighter than the others (the color is different too, I don't really know how to explain, like there's a layer of transcluscent white over the inside of the smokey parts). It seems to be lighter where I put the sugar too. Or maybe that's just regular variation. I'll do a couple more tests when I get more from the kiln.

All of the sheep I took individual pictures of in one post! They're tiny. Like, I don't know, about 5 centimeters / 2 inches. Also they're for sale! In my shop. Not all of them, but some. And if you want a specific one you can just ask it probably is available.

For the white parts I just put raw slip over those parts before smoking it. It keeps the smoke from taking where it covers the clay, and it's relatively easy to remove with water afterwards.

I did not glaze all of the sheep. I personally like the unglazed look a lot but I feel like people would think the glazed ones look more finished. (also those are an earlier version where they had no split hooves mark and no eyes - but even without that) (unglazed in first pic, glazed in second one)

So! Social media's control of our followers/content sucks (why oh why do you need to log in to see what's posted!), but I never will remember to check out multiple personal websites regularly, so RSS feeds are great. So I made an RSS feed on my website! In english: https://falano.github.io/feed/ceramics.xml; and in french: https://falano.github.io/feed/ceramique.xml (as you can see, it's for ceramics; I may make a different one later for 2D art, maybe for fanart) There's like three posts right now, and I post about once a month (ish), mostly what I've posted here but sorted by theme (maybe at some point I'll just sort it by date but I currently am not), so that people don't have to make an account on a platform to follow me.

I do realize the irony in posting about it here but. Well.

If you use RSS and like what I do please consider following me there for occasional pictures of ceramics, I won't be able to tell how many people do it'll be very relaxing.

So this batch was a bit disappointing as to the results it gave (but still good because now I know what doesn't work) Botz glazes: Flat colours are… yeah, flat. Good to know. I'll probably use them for something at some point. They do exactly the job they should, but I forgot what I wanted them for. Oooh, maybe for the glazed medaillons? Uh. Good to know, I had completely forgotten.

Looks like the mayco matte glaze is necessary for the pretty effect I had before. I don't like how the matte glaze looks straight on clay (or on underglaze), but maybe it will look nice over other glazes (especially if I can reliably make the pretty blue-grey from before over wider surfaces). Maybe if I put an even coat of grey and only spots/lines of blue? To test further (first pic is from the recent batch, second pic is what I was trying to recreate from a previous batch)

Koralle on black is absolutely gorgeous as expected. Koralle on white is… okay.

Sonnenfeuer is. Hm. Not really to my liking. I expected something more like a yellow Koralle. More visual texture. I'll try stacking it with the darker yellow and see what it looks like.

To get a better Sonnenfeuer I tried (this is a later firing actually) putting over a layer of Koralle and Maisgelb. Over Koralle it's fine, nothing unexpected, but over Maisgelb it bubbled??? For some reason?? Oh hey, if I put Sonnenfeuer under and Maisgelb over, it might not (if the bubbles are due to, say, gas that escaped Maisgelb when Sonnenfeuer had already started to harden a little bit so it could not smooth over again afterwards)! I... might do it, mayhaps, at some undeterminate point in the future when I feel like playing with glazes some more.

Graue Feder is, as always, gorgeous. (I did not expect that when I bought it, but it's consistently given my favorite results so far)

Peter Lavem glaze: Vert Antique… is not (gorgeous, that is). I did try to put it on thicker but uh that's really not visible. I should use it exclusively on red clay, looks like. (first pic is current batch, second pic is from a previous batch)

Mayco glazes: Lavender Flower bubbled something fierce. I'm actually surprised none of the others did in the slightest (this black clay made one of my transparent glazes bubble too, but very inconsistently between different firings; I should check whether Lavender Flower's bubbling is consistent). There is probably some project it would look great on, but I'm not doing it at the moment (I actually bought all those glazes with mostly no clue how I was gonna use them, it's not just that one) ... I very much like it though. I really should find some project to make use of it.

Sea Green over black was hilariously uninteresting.

Waterfall is confirmed Not Actually Waterfall at all (it's probably EL-131 Turtle Shell or maybe EL-106 Tidal Pool - which is pretty useless when I already have Sea Green, but oh well). I could call the shop to complain (Waterfall my beloved, forever out of reach...) but at this point it's been really long (my kiln schedule is very slow) so it's not really worth it.

Medaillons with glaze do look nice (I wasn't sure they would)

And they have relief! (wow water sure takes up a lot of room in liquid glazes who'd have thought)

So yay for more glaze information!

Just realized after working for four-ish hours straight on it (four-ish hours today, more over the past few days) that my leather-hard sculpture has one side whose shape I actually don't quite like. Yay.

Hm. Do I try to fix it? It's probably too late, will crack and break. Probably. Do I "whatever it's fine" it? It *is* kinda fine, just bothering me a little. Hm... One thing's for sure I should decide now.

Hm.

Hm...

The bottom one looks like it has vitiligo and I'm all for it.