Making plaster casts

This weekend we had a plaster cast workshop at the pottery studio, held by plaster-caster-extraordinare Kjersti Lunde. Great fun, and a lot more to it than what I in my ignorance had thought. Pictures of my evolving projects below.

The finished production, which now has to dry out for about a week or so before I can start using them. Can't wait!

Grafitti

This is one of my favourite grafitti walls in Oslo, at Blå -in an old industrial area by the river, which has been convertet into a private art school and a music venue, amongst other things. The piece has been there for quite some time, but now it has started being painted over, so I thought I'd better take some pictures before it is all gone...

(For a closer look, you can click on the pictures.)

An Adana 3x5!

It will still be a while before I get the Adana 5x8 I ordered a few weeks back. Refurbishing takes time. And while impatiently waiting for it, I did something I promised myself that I wouldn’t: I impulse bought one on Ebay! And a 3x5 to boot!! I had already decided that it would be too small to be very useful, and that I was going to spend my hard earned cash wisely on essentials only! Right. Redeeming factors are that it was very reasonable, and the very nice seller was kind enough to include a full starter kit for me.

Today it arrived, and I have to say it is lovely to finally have a press, even if it is a Mini! It looks to be in good condition, and it came with all kinds of great extras.

I had to give it a quick test run, just to see if I still remembered anything from the workshop. And I remember some, but certainly not all of it. Hopefully it will all come back to me as I continue working with it. It generally seems to be very similar to the 5x8 Adana, with a few minor differences. For instance there is no typeman padding bale, and the chase is held in place inside the bearer chase by screws.

The rollers moved very awkwardly over the chase, roller bearers and bearer chase, and it took me a while to realize that I am missing roller runners. In the mean time I had covered everything in ink, but luckily I did not ruin the rollers, and all the ink can be cleaned off. I have now ordered roller runners, and don’t think I will risk using the rollers any more until I get them. And then I guess there will be a lot of tinkering and tweaking until I, hopefully,  get a good, even impression. But at least I’m on my way! Hurra!!

Summer market

It is time for another market at the pottery studio this weekend. As usual I have not had time to make much, but my fellow 'workshoppers' have been producing non-stop for the last cople of months, so there should be a lot of ceramics up for grabs. And of course there will be cake! So if you are in the area, you are hereby invited to stop by and say hello.

Update: The weather was not the best, but we still had a fun weekend. Lots of people stopped by. And I sold most of my nerikomi pieces, hurra!.

Porcelain jewlery

Some of the finished jewlery. The clouds became brooches, the rest became  rings.

Volcanic glaze?

I have made some more porcelain clouds, which I thought I might try and make into brooches for the up-coming market. I gave them a coating of one of my favourite glazes, which gives a lot of colour variation depending on glaze thickness, ranging from acidic yellow to turquoise. This time they came out of the oven with more variations than I had bargained for though – they were all bubbly! Have not figured out why yet… I have used the same porcelain clay and temperature before, without this happening. Quite the conundrum. Anyway, this is one of the joys of working with ceramics; you never can tell exactly what you are going to end up with. They remind me a little of the Islandic volcanic ash plumes we have seen lately. So maybe that is what they are: Volcanic ash clouds?