I did some more raku last weekend. I did a number of pieces including 3-4 pendants of 'Bob'. Bob is a polynesian carving of a manaia, combined with a triple twist. The triple twist represent the eternal union of two distinct cultures, combining to create something new. The manaia is a protectorate spirit, represent by a sort of bird.
I forget what the name of the raku glaze I used for the background, but it was the same glaze I used for the fins of The Hungry Goldfish and the body of The Flytrap. I used clear crackle glaze to go over the 'Bob' parts and the background as well. Aaron used a 'Wildfire' glaze all over one of the pendants.
The results were very nice, I think. The clear crackle did not crackle a whole lot, but we think it's because we're using low fire clay. The background glaze had lots of depth and lots of metallics. Unfortunately, all but one of the 'Bobs' broke.
Mishy has noticed a lot of breakings with my raku. She gets the occassional cracking, but not like what I'm experiencing. We decided to switch to a sandy stoneware clay for my raku pieces. This should also address the lack of crazing when using the crackle glaze.
Being I was running low on clay, I decided to get another 25 lbs of my low fire clay. I also got 25 lbs of Mishy's own recycled mix, which I got at a discount. WOOHOOO! This clay is super soft and very fluid, if you can describe clay as fluid. It's really easy to work with.
I did some 'Bobs'. They took the impressions even better than my low fire clay. The clay is softer, so it didn't crack around the edges.
I did another goldfish pot. It was a bit tricky doing some of the work with such wet clay, but it worked. I did two fish pots, actually.
I tried a bubble feet mame bonsai pot. The wet clay adhered much better to itself with just a squirt of water; no need for extra slip.
I tried a mog style bonsai pot, but I wanted to experiment with the feet, give it more expression. I figure if hands can be expressive, then feet can be expressive for pots. This bonsai pot is not very stable, but I'm progressing with it. Worst case scenario, it will be confined to my own stable, and that is not a bad thing!
I was feeling creative yesterday, I think that new clay let the creative juices just flow. I wanted to try to do a bonsai stamper. My first attempt, I was trying to do a bonsai in a primitive style, so I carved a tree in fimo using a toothpick. It came out good so I used the stamper to make a bunch of bonsai pendants and tags. I wanted to make some handmade business cards, so I tried using the stamper to create a relief stamper. The stamp came out kinda good, but left a kinda stick figure tree. It was kinda artsy and I liked it, but I wanted to try something different. Bernie thought it looked good, but she wanted to see something that took up more of the card. I was using a 12 pack card to make the business cards, so THEN I drew up a bonsai tree on 12 pack cardboard, and I cut out the outline to create a template. I used the template to cut out a bonsai shape on rolled fimo. It came out pretty good I think. I used the same template to make an impression in that new recylced clay.
In the garden-
I order some Water Jasmine, Wrightia religiosa seeds from ebay. The seeds were a bit expensive. Only three sprouted. I also ordered some Money tree seeds, Pachira aquatica. They're growing, I think. We'll see.