A TEAPOT FOR DOWN UNDER ...

I was commisioned by a couple from Melbourne, Australia to create a teapot and pair of his and her cups as a house warming gift to themselves. They are moving into their new home in mid-April. After several conversations about size, shape, color... and a sketch, we had a plan.  I did warn her that the kiln has the final say and I would do all I could to make it work. She understood and off I went.

I started with throwing the body, spout (not shown), lid and a pair of cups... plus an extra. I'll make/pull the handles later. I let these parts stiffen up a bit to what we call leather hard. What follows is a rough tutorial on teapot making, adding a few techniques and tricks I use to create one. I hope you like it.

Now I'm cutting and test fitting the spout to fit the profile/curve of the body. You can see my chamois on the edge of the bucket is attached to a cork so I don't lose it in the water and that's the top of a fish aquarium heater in my water bucket so my water isn't cold during the winter. I also use a mirror to see the profile of what I'm throwing so I don't have to bend to the side all the time. I had a bad auto accident many years ago and my lower back needs a little help.

Once the spout fits well, I traced around the spout so I would know where to put the strainer holes.

I started to drill the holes and I'll smooth and bevel the holes later with this tapered "plug".

Now I'll "score and slip" the two pieces together using a piece of comb and slip/wet clay.

I add this tapered coil of clay under the lip of the spout and smoothed it in place. This creates a lip that will stops drips from ... well... dripping. The drips won't go "uphill".

I put a vent hole in the lid and added a pulled handle, adding a coil to each side as a decorative feature. It also gives the handle the needed thickness to look balanced visually.  I have bent the handle to compliment the swirl I added to the body of the teapot. I also filled in the juncture of the handle and and spout so there would be a nice "flow" from one into the other. I like how the undulated foot compliments the swirl and handle angle. I could have made the opening of the spout a bit higher, adding a couple of ounces of capacity to the teapot, but I like the looks of it where it is. Also the angle of the spout opening compliments the angle of the back of the handle on the right side. These are some of the considerations I think of when designing the piece. It's like a sculpture to me.

I'll keep you posted on the progress of this teapot in future posts as I go through the glazing, firing and finishing of it.  Cheers...

A NEW THIS ... and a NEW THAT...

Just wanted to show you some brushwork I'm trying again. The tricky part is getting it hot enough without too much ash to obliterate the designs. Placement in the kiln is everything... well very, very important anyway.  Last time I tried it, I ended up with too much running.  I know this type of work is usually saggered... but, I gotta' try it this way.

Next new thing I'm going to try is making my own handles. I have been making grape vine handles from vines on the edge of the woods. There are three for starters.

 This is a very small kyusu that should hold about 5 oz, good for gyokuro.

I did some handbuilding too... A sake set made out of slabs, before glazing...

... and after glazing with a couple more pieces.

Back to glazing... and a couple more experiments.

"Stack 'a Work for the Fourties"

Another stack of work ready for the bisque kiln. It's getting more exciting now because now I know I now have enough to fill the wood kiln again. I have altered a lot of pieces to compliment the wood-firing process. Soft corners and uneven surfaces, trip up the flow of the ash and flame, leaving interesting surfaces in the wake. I will bisque fire these and then start my glazing, which should take me a couple of weeks, working part-time - I still teach full-time.
The glazing will be exciting because I can continue with my experiments of color combinations and layers, an ongoing, never ending process. The timing of all this should take me to later in March where I can fire. Mid fourties would be nice.

Slice and dice

As you can see, this is my huge clay wedging and slicing area. I do however have a creative way of slicing bricks of clay into same size slabs that I then quarter or sometimes cut only in half. I make sets of mugs, etc. and I get them to come out close without weighing them out any more by choosing a set of sticks that has been ripped down to a certain thickness.

In this picture, you can see I'm using 1 3/4" thick pieces on each side. I then push/slide my taut cut off wire across the top of them leaving me with a slab of clay 1 3/4" x 6" x 6". I then quarter that by eye on the wire mounted to the wall and bat to the right and each quartered piece gets packed into a ball that will be 1 lb. That will give me a nice sized mug or a small bowl... I could also turn these two sticks on their side and have 2 1/2" slices for a 1 3/4 lb. ball. I have several thicknesss' and even stack them for thicker slices. Works for me!!