Andi Fasimpaur on mon 6 jan 03
Greetings,
Well, I've been away from clayart for a while, and it feels a little
selfish to post asking for advice so soon after returning, but this has
been driving me crazy.
I've been working on hollow pierced porcelain forms. I'm using Southern Ice
Porcelain. Does anyone have any recommendations to prevent the bridges (the
clay areas in my carvings) from cracking... it really seems like a
significant percentage of the pieces that I've been working on develop this
cracking and I'd love some advice from people with more experience carving
porcelain than I have. I've kinda figured this out through experimentation
after looking at some wonderful photos in an old book on porcelain.
I've got a couple of examples of the pieces that I'm working on here:
http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/leaf1/front.jpg
http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/porcelain/backlit.jpg
http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/leaf1/back.jpg
and here:
http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/porcelain/pierced.jpg
any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Andi
http://www.mysticspiral.com
Dean Walker on tue 7 jan 03
Try slowing down the drying process. Let it dry a bit then loosely put
plastic over it . It will take a long time to dry but I have found it helps
prevent cracks in alot of different cases.
Dean
Ilene Mahler on tue 7 jan 03
I know that Elaine Coleman uses Coleman Porcelain for her carving and
according to the C.M. article still may have to have Tom patch..If it is
most of the time use another claybody...Ilene in Cold Snowy Conn
----- Original Message -----
From: Andi Fasimpaur
To:
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 11:16 PM
Subject: Advice Needed: Pierced Porcelain
> Greetings,
>
> Well, I've been away from clayart for a while, and it feels a little
> selfish to post asking for advice so soon after returning, but this has
> been driving me crazy.
>
> I've been working on hollow pierced porcelain forms. I'm using Southern
Ice
> Porcelain. Does anyone have any recommendations to prevent the bridges
(the
> clay areas in my carvings) from cracking... it really seems like a
> significant percentage of the pieces that I've been working on develop
this
> cracking and I'd love some advice from people with more experience carving
> porcelain than I have. I've kinda figured this out through experimentation
> after looking at some wonderful photos in an old book on porcelain.
>
> I've got a couple of examples of the pieces that I'm working on here:
>
> http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/leaf1/front.jpg
> http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/porcelain/backlit.jpg
> http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/leaf1/back.jpg
>
> and here:
>
> http://www.mysticspiral.com/auctions/porcelain/pierced.jpg
>
> any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Andi
> http://www.mysticspiral.com
>
>
____________________________________________________________________________
__
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
melpots@pclink.com.
Jocelyn McAuley on tue 7 jan 03
Hi Andi
Another option that may help prevent breaking is to use a dremel tool, to
drill/pierce the work. This is how I've seen it done in most books (Peter
Lane's). I am assuming the drilling is done when the work is bisqued, but
then again... you know what they say about assuming anything in clay.
I just went and looked at your photos- these are wonderful pieces!
Best of luck
--
Jocelyn McAuley ><<'> jocie@worlddomination.net
Eugene, Oregon http://www.ceramicism.com
Andi Fasimpaur on wed 8 jan 03
At 10:18 AM 1/7/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I know that Elaine Coleman uses Coleman Porcelain for her carving and
>according to the C.M. article still may have to have Tom patch..If it is
>most of the time use another claybody...Ilene in Cold Snowy Conn
Thanks for the suggestion and the reminder about the CM article... I
re-read it and was somewhat comforted by the fact that they often choose to
repair pieces rather than starting over... I've spent most of my time on
clayart reading Mel's advice to just take a hammer to the stuff that cracks
which is great advice when you'll spend as much time trying to fix a flaw
as it would take to make a new piece, but I'm always somewhat hesitant to
do that when a repair would take 5-10 minutes and it would take at least an
hour to get back to the point where the flaw was discovered...
I'm probably insane to spend this much time carving and piercing hollow
handbuilt beads, but the results are so lovely and it's the first time in a
long time that I've looked at something I've made and felt like "Yes, i'm
really doing what I should be doing..."
Well, I've got 19 beads in the kiln downstairs... it took me a week to get
them done, and I'd love to have them glazed to show off when I have lunch
with my best claybud on Friday...
Toodles,
Andi.
http://www.mysticspiral.com
Andi Fasimpaur on wed 8 jan 03
At 10:19 PM 1/7/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> Try slowing down the drying process. Let it dry a bit then loosely put
>plastic over it . It will take a long time to dry but I have found it helps
>prevent cracks in alot of different cases.
>Dean
Thanks, Dean,
so far, you seem to be right. There are certain stages where the carving
seems to go much better than others... When I'm sketching the design on the
surface, they're pretty wet. Then I wrap them overnight which seems to
equalize the moisture level. Then I can make the initial piercings with the
drill bit and wrap them back up... (usually with a bit of damp sponge)...
Then a sharp scalpel to remove the waste between the drilled holes and wrap
them up again...
It's amazing how quickly they dry. but I'll see what I can do to slow the
drying process a bit more.
Thanks again for the input... I knew that asking on ClayArt would really help.
Best Wishes,
Andi
http://www.mysticspiral.com
Andi Fasimpaur on wed 8 jan 03
At 03:04 PM 1/7/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi Andi
>
>Another option that may help prevent breaking is to use a dremel tool, to
>drill/pierce the work. This is how I've seen it done in most books (Peter
>Lane's). I am assuming the drilling is done when the work is bisqued, but
>then again... you know what they say about assuming anything in clay.
I have Peter Lane's book somewhere, I'll have to find it (it's in the
studio or in the library... I think... it might be in that box of old CMs
and *stuff* that I've had in the basement waiting until I get around to
moving the bookshelves into the studio... I really need to get the studio
organized, I've got a tiny space to work in and everything else is clutter...)
I'm somewhat reluctant to use a dremel because the pieces are so small, I
think that the largest bead that I've made is like 20mm in diameter...
knowing my luck, I'd end up drilling holes in my fingers as I tried to
steady the bead on the work surface or something... there's a little shop
around the corner that caters to the poured ceramics set... I stopped in
there and the woman suggested bisque firing at a very low temp, like
^018... she said that the beads would still be soft enough to carve by
hand. it makes sense but I kind of like being able to recycle the "waste"
clay from the process... It's all still a learning experience, so I'll keep
trying to figure it out...
>I just went and looked at your photos- these are wonderful pieces!
>Best of luck
Thank you. Before my hand surgeries in 1999, I was working on handbuilding
translucent porcelain pieces that were all less than 1 inch tall... Since
the surgeries, I had been reluctant to try anything quite that
small because I felt, on some level, that since that was what I was
working on when I found out I would need the surgeries, that somehow those
pieces were to blame... I think I was also afraid that no matter how well I
thought I had recovered, I still wasn't quite as "good" as i was before the
procedures...
I'm feeling a lot better about all of it now. These pieces are all
handbuilt. I pinch 2 tiny bowls and then refine their shapes on wooden doll
eye socket formers. Then I join the bowls together to form a rough sphere
and wrap them in plastic over night so that the moisture level equalizes.
The next day I refine the shape more, trying to get them to be more
spherical. Next I sketch the pattern onto the surface with a water color
pencil and begin piercing them with a drill bit.
So far, the smallest one that I've done was about 9 mm and the largest
about 20 mm. They're all translucent, and they're all practically
weightless...
Thanks again for the feedback. I should really get to work glazing.
Best Wishes,
Andi.
http://www.mysticspiral.com
Snail Scott on wed 8 jan 03
At 11:21 AM 1/8/03 -0500, Andi wrote:
>I'm probably insane to spend this much time carving and piercing hollow
>handbuilt beads, but the results are so lovely...
There is a VERY serious market for one-off, handmade
beads, with VERY large price tags attached! Pick
up a few of the bead magazines...if you attend even
a few of their specialty trade shows, you may find
just the market you need for the objects you want to
make.
-Snail
Paul Taylor on fri 10 jan 03
Dear Andi
I have been following the post . I have made some carved pieces that are
very small for my sculpture - It's on my sight.
I find that unlike most clays porcelain seems to patch well and is worth
the try in pieces that are very intricate. Mel's advise like all his advise
is sound but to every thing in pottery there is an exception. Most of Mel's
work is thrown and that means the pieces have an internal (a sort of grain)
and an external structure if there is a crack it is usually structural and
since it's this structure that is integral to the crack patching hardly ever
works and trying seems to show a poverty of spirit when throwing is so
'Immediate'.
However with your beads you can make up all sorts of porcelain recipes to
make your beads with thay could be initially stronger. Ones that are less or
more plastic or ones with some added binder like gum arabic or glaze
hardener ( not that any of these ideas will work its just too easy to try an
experiment given that your work is so small and there is no large material
cost involved.) You can make up porcelains that work well very easily by
using glaze calculation techniques - start with a little bentonite for
plasticity. You get a formula for a porcelain that works at your firing and
go from there.
Also the patch does not have to be done with the same clay recipe just
adding some paper (mashed toilet tissue is a favorite) to the clay and
tidying up the scar with sand paper after drying or bisk works. Use vinegar
on the bits you are patching. Or try one of the less plastic or gum
fortified experimental porcelains as a patch or a bit of every thing, body,
gum ,paper and all.
Then bottle the recipe and sell it on the internet:)
--
--
Regards from Paul Taylor
tamlin1952@go.com
http://www.anu.ie/westportpottery
Phone International 00 353 98 21239
From the Republic of Ireland 098 21239
Paul Taylor
Westport pottery
Liscarney
Westport
County Mayo
Ireland
> From: Andi Fasimpaur
> Reply-To: Clayart
> Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 11:48:10 -0500
> To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
> Subject: Re: Advice Needed: Pierced Porcelain
>
>
> Thanks, Dean,
>
> so far, you seem to be right. There are certain stages where the carving
> seems to go much better than others... When I'm sketching the design on the
> surface, they're pretty wet. Then I wrap them overnight which seems to
> equalize the moisture level. Then I can make the initial piercings with the
> drill bit and wrap them back up... (usually with a bit of damp sponge)...
> Then a sharp scalpel to remove the waste between the drilled holes and wrap
> them up again...
>
> It's amazing how quickly they dry. but I'll see what I can do to slow the
> drying process a bit more.
>
> Thanks again for the input... I knew that asking on ClayArt would really help.
>
> Best Wishes,
>
> Andi
> http://www.mysticspiral.com
>
| |
|
