The Newest Birdhouse...a Bird-Condo

This is a Christmas present for my wife...she wanted a 6-unit birdhouse...essentially a condo, or maybe an apartment complex? I'm not sure. We'll have to ask the birds once they move in.

A Rabbit Hat...doesn't everyone have one of these?

More sgraffito decoration and underglazes.

A New Batch of Horsehair Raku Pots!

Here are some new pots...Raku-Horsehair-style! The wheel thrown forms are stained with acrylic paints and finished with a clear acrylic sealer once the Raku firing is done.

A Goofy Face Vase

Here's a slab-built vase that I made for demonstration purposes at school. I think the bow-tie is my favorite part.

Kinetic Toy!

I am in the midst of creating a very challenging project for my third semester ceramics students at Sehome High School. I'm asking them to create a kinetic toy using at least 25% ceramic parts. I figured I should make one myself and see what challenges they will encounter. How hard can it be?? Here goes...

After much sketching, I finally created a design drawing of a surprised fisherman in a leaky boat, holding a big fish.  I made paper patterns for the boat and water.  Temporarily taping them together helps me get a sense of the scale of the piece.

I rolled a large slab and cut the parts for the boat and water using the patterns as a guide. Looks complicated.

Next step: start the assembly of the leather-hard slabs...

The boat's almost ready for the water that's "leaked in".

Once the water is added and waves created, the whole boat becomes a template so I know where to cut the hole in the large slab that's the wavy water. This large hole will allow for vertical wooden push-rods to make the fish move and the fisherman's head to turn.

The hole is cut and the clay scored in preparation for attaching the boat.

Detail is added to the waves using soft clay and a modeling tool.

Pinch pots are the basis for the fisherman's head and torso...who said pinch pots are too basic?

Detail is added to the leather-hard pinched forms using small modeling tools.

The torso is used as a template for cutting a hole in the water for the mechanicals that will make the head turn.

A sharp X-acto knife makes a clean cut.

The boat is nearly complete and will be dried out and bisque-fired.

Holes are drilled in the torso at the leather-hard stage using metal drill bits (held and turned by hand---no drill needed). Once the holes are made, wooden dowels can be used to verify that the holes are properly aligned.

The parts for the arms and the fish are pinched/formed by hand.

Once dried to the leather-hard stage, the arm and hand parts can be carved for detail. A metal drill bit is shown here holding two parts together. After bisque-firing, wooden dowels will be glued into the holes in each joint.

After bisque-firing, all clay parts are primed with a water-based primer, then painted with acrylic paints and detailed with fine-tip permanent markers, color pencils, etc.

The head gets some detail applied.

A preliminary test of the first cam showed that the cam was okay but the vertical push-rod was a too high and the fish stuck at it's apex. A little bit of the wooden dowel was cut off with a coping saw, parts reassembled, and the fish jumped up and down successfully.

All the ceramic parts are removed and will eventually be glued on the wood structure with  wood glue. In the mean time, the rest of the mechanical parts (pulleys, a string belt, and more cams) are built, attached and tested. Almost done. I know it looks complicated but I referred to many examples I found on the internet for ideas to make the mechanical parts work.

 

Here's the You Tube video...

Rabbit Vacation!

I finally delivered these (and a couple other) pieces to Good Earth Pottery in Fairhaven. I've been busy all summer doing this-and-that around the house and garden and it's been difficult to make creating time. My favorite piece shown here is the "Rabbit Vacation Plate" at the bottom.

A New Bird!

Here's a series of photos of a new bird sculpture I recently made for my wife. The bird is sand-cast using a mixture of fine sand, cement and perlite. The bird's form is initially scooped/"carved" out of the damp, compacted sand. Next, water is added to the mixture of sand-cement-perlite and the resulting slurry is gently poured into the prepared mold. The mix should be stiff enough to build up raised areas of relief that can be carved away the next day. Once the bird has hardened up overnight the sculpture can be carved and refined with a variety of tools. I like to use rasp-files, Shurform pocket-planes, old chisels, paint-scrapers, etc.  The sculpture needs to be dried for two to three weeks to allow the cement to cure and all water to evaporate. Next, the from can be primed using an exterior grade primer paint. Then, the color begins. I use a variety of paints, mostly acrylic enamels that come in liquid form. They need to be exterior grade also to hold up to  harsh outdoor conditions.

A New Birdhouse. And birds inside!! I swear!

We cut down most of a big holly tree (a clump with several large trunks) in our backyard but left one trunk so we could put a birdhouse on it...and here it is, finally. I used scraps of wood from our studio, ceramic tile mosaic for the front and a recycled roof from another old birdhouse. Left-over paint was also used and in no time birds were occupying the new place. As the house is pretty large (to visually fit the size of the trunk) I built a smaller walled off "room" inside the house so the birds would have a better nest building space. The size of the opening to the house helps determine what type of bird will be attracted to the house. Wrens and smaller birds go for holes around 1 1/4" to 1 3/8".

New Horsehair Raku Pots!

Here's three new Horsehair Raku vases! ...and check out the colors in the background from our garden. A nice Azalea in the upper-right corner!

New lidded Jars!

Two new lidded jars...one with crazy birds and the other with a leaf pattern.

Beartrap Teapot

Here's my latest "phone conversation" vessel, a slab-built teapot made of a mid-range stoneware clay. I've covered the vessel with several layers of porcelain and black slip to create the sgraffito effect. Finally I've applied  underglazes and a clear glaze to complete the piece. She's talking to her friend and describing the "worst birthday ever".

Two New (almost complete) Plates

Bone-dry plates to be bisque-fired!