The Kiln Technician's Laboratory
- A place of experimentation
This Lab is a kind of scrap book come blog of Julian's project work. The most recent entries are at the top.
Oct 2011
The glaze didn't take on its second firing a while back. The base (I think!) was glazed a golden yellow. Soon we will re-fire it at a higher temperature and hope all goes well.
THE EAGLE HAS LANDED
My fascination with spacecraft imagery has continued this Summer, with the blocky, somewhat cubist aspect of the Apollo Lunar Module. Around the time of the Apollo missions I had what many boys of that era had - an Airfix model of the Lander, painstakingly built and glued together by myself! Today, my new ceramic version, legs extended and ready to land on the Moon, has passed the biscuit firing stage and now awaits the glaze firing phase!
RETRO ROCKET
This is a large, slab-built version of the iconic roketship of the 1950s. I'll get a pic up here as soon as I've finished the surface decoration. At the moment it's ready for biscuit firing. Oct 8th - adding red and white surface squares, painted on with liquid clay (slip). Really enjoying creating this one.
SEALIFE FORMS
An attempt to emulate nature's forms in clay. The sculpture is the largest I've attempted so far, comprising three large shells, one on top of another. I'm hoping it won't explode in the kiln when we do the first firing...
THE CERAMIC SOLAR SYSTEM
Sounds grand, but it was based on my interest in astronomy. I made a plaster mold of a hemisphere, then used it to make 18 half spheres which I joined together, to make the nine planets of the solar system. I wanted them to be the same size - apart from the sun - because I was more interested in their inter-spacial positions rather than their size. And besides, the sun and Jupiter would have dominated had they been to scale. I held an open air event in the garden, where I laid the planets out on a reflective silvery surface. First, they were laid symetrically, then in true position relative to the sun. The latter makes the solar system look very cramped indeed! I'm still thinking about whether to use other materials to turn it into a 3-D model.
THE FIREY FURNACE
This was my first box built with slabs. Taken from the Biblical account in the book of Daniel, describing three faithful Hebrews who were thrown into a firey furnace. A mysterious fourth person was seen walking around inside, none of them harmed by the flames. My furnace has apertures and symbolic windows so you can peep inside, and the surface is coated in copper oxide to give it a green metalic effect.
A SEASON FOR ALL THINGS
This was my first project, which began with an idea, and pencil sketches. A tree made up of three giant leaves, each leaf representing a season. Words are engraved on the leaves which express human and spiritual slants on the seasons. The well-known quote from the book of Ecclesiastes is written around the base of the tree: "There is a season for all things".
Oct 2011The glaze didn't take on its second firing a while back. The base (I think!) was glazed a golden yellow. Soon we will re-fire it at a higher temperature and hope all goes well.THE EAGLE HAS LANDEDMy fascination with spacecraft imagery has continued this Summer, with the blocky, somewhat cubist aspect of the Apollo Lunar Module. Around the time of the Apollo missions I had what many boys of that era had - an Airfix model of the Lander, painstakingly built and glued together by myself! Today, my new ceramic version, legs extended and ready to land on the Moon, has passed the biscuit firing stage and now awaits the glaze firing phase!RETRO ROCKETThis is a large, slab-built version of the iconic roketship of the 1950s. I'll get a pic up here as soon as I've finished the surface decoration. At the moment it's ready for biscuit firing. Oct 8th - adding red and white surface squares, painted on with liquid clay (slip). Really enjoying creating this one.SEALIFE FORMSAn attempt to emulate nature's forms in clay. The sculpture is the largest I've attempted so far, comprising three large shells, one on top of another. I'm hoping it won't explode in the kiln when we do the first firing...THE CERAMIC SOLAR SYSTEMSounds grand, but it was based on my interest in astronomy. I made a plaster mold of a hemisphere, then used it to make 18 half spheres which I joined together, to make the nine planets of the solar system. I wanted them to be the same size - apart from the sun - because I was more interested in their inter-spacial positions rather than their size. And besides, the sun and Jupiter would have dominated had they been to scale. I held an open air event in the garden, where I laid the planets out on a reflective silvery surface. First, they were laid symetrically, then in true position relative to the sun. The latter makes the solar system look very cramped indeed! I'm still thinking about whether to use other materials to turn it into a 3-D model.
THE FIREY FURNACEThis was my first box built with slabs. Taken from the Biblical account in the book of Daniel, describing three faithful Hebrews who were thrown into a firey furnace. A mysterious fourth person was seen walking around inside, none of them harmed by the flames. My furnace has apertures and symbolic windows so you can peep inside, and the surface is coated in copper oxide to give it a green metalic effect.
A SEASON FOR ALL THINGSThis was my first project, which began with an idea, and pencil sketches. A tree made up of three giant leaves, each leaf representing a season. Words are engraved on the leaves which express human and spiritual slants on the seasons. The well-known quote from the book of Ecclesiastes is written around the base of the tree: "There is a season for all things".
