On the wheel again

Well I have back at Uni this week, and I haven't really had time to sit down and make just one form as I have to throw everything I need for my show by this next Friday ideally so then I can glaze it and work on my display for the show as it all has to be set up by May 21st, once the show is set up I can spend a day at a time throwing the things I need to sell this summer.

I was so busy trimming and cleaning on Friday which was the only day we had the camera at Uni, it was just a couple of quick shots, I will try harder this next week to get the shots I want down to a T. As the University seems to have run out of stoneware I couldn't spend my time merely making big object, I do however have two different sorts of white stoneware clay from Valentine Clays I think it is the Arctic White and Porcelain White and have 25kgs if each

Three cereal bowls, I dropped the middle one and accidently destroyed it after this shot, this week it feels like I have done pairs of everything but the tea cup and I think I have 5 of those as I had thrown 7 and two of them weren't good enough so they went straight to the reclaim.
Small fruit bowl, I did throw quite a few of these large bowls and platters, the problem is even in the big kiln there is only so much space inbetween the props on each shelf, especially as the shelves are the same size as the small gas kiln, you can just fit 4 towers if them in.
Just a few mugs, I liked the way these turned out, still need a lot more practice with handles, I think as soon as I get time I will have to throw a cylinder this size and attach as many handles as I can to it, I managed the handles on my tea cups easily as I don't feel as if I am going to drop them every time I pick them up, but with these mug I just can't get a comfortable grip on them.

Thankfully I can use the University's facilities until the degree show is finished, so I will be ordering more clay and getting to work big time, no more experimenting for a while, just getting my forms down and done.

I have been off of University for over a week now, it is hard not being able to throw while I have been off as I have been so busy with other stuff that doesn't really relate to making. I have been putting together my business studies portfolio, just need to get some info on insurances and then write the feasibility study along with all the proformas for the work. Going on a course run by the local council this Wednesday.

I am still looking at various locations for opening the business, but I am now putting it aside in my head for the moment until I have at least made all the work for the degree show.

This Summer as well as having the Degree show at Preston Uni which opens to the public June 14th, though the preview evening for that is the 11th, I will also be going to New Designers and will be there for the preview day and the 1st of July our stand is CG16 and is up on the balcony near the stair case. Also I am going to the Super Duper Itsy Bitsy Handmade Fair 2010 held by Blackpool Council in Stanley Park on July 18th, it should be fun, even if I am the only potter there I have to raise my profile locally as well as in the south.

On a separate note my wife has started blogging her blog can be found here


Here are some pictures on the way I start trying to design.

I start off just looking at various shapes on a very small scale, just a really small thumbnail not taking any time over these as it is about looking mainly at the silhouettes.

Just taking a design from the small drawings and filling an A3 sheet the shape in different proportions and looking at adding handles and spouts, my thinking is that these would make interesting tea or coffee pots.
Just starting to look at things a bit more graphically, trying to work out how I would decorate it with the cross hatching and the black boxes are something to help the shape stand out more against the paper and something we used to have to do when I was doing illustration though we used to take more time over the boxes than I have doing the whole drawing here.

These pots are as of yet unresolved even though they are one of the first designs I came up with, as I don't have the skills to really make something like these them being so wonky and asymmetrical.

A new day a new Attittude

Sleep really does the mind good, I'm so glad that it does. As it is now technically my holidays I should be doing paperwork for the next two weeks, I do have a wheel at home but the kiln I have isn't connected to the electric supply so I can't even bisque my work. I will probably try and throw one day while I am off I only have a limited supply of clay right now, mainly terracotta which is a bit useless for a stoneware potter. hopefully I will find some time to paint whilst my little boy is at nursery one day, I have some new paints so there is no excuse, even if I just end up painting a picture of one of my bowls with lemons in



These are some close ups of my platters, I love how the iron speckles break apart the broad strokes.



This is the workshop I work in at University, as you can see it is quite cramped, especially when we have had up to 15 people working in here at any given time, so I tend to wedge together as much clay as I think I will need for the morning and then get on with it, same for the afternoon. I started making platters again last week as you can see here, as my mark finally arrived last Wednesday after many problems with Parcel Force who kept trying to deliver my order to a place in Poulton which is the next town over which has a similar street name but not the same post code or town name.


Here is an impression of my mark, it works much better on leather hard clay and forms a really crisp image, I love it. Anthea's stamp is a cute little fox which is the same as the logo on our website red fox pottery.

Back to the beginning

This is the first thing I ever made when I started at UCLAN asides something I had made out of air drying clay when I was in Beaver Scouts when I still lived in Fleetwood 20 years ago, it is actually the first thing I ever made out of clay. It was the first assignment at Uni to make the tallest structure you could with a set amount of clay, I did have a little clay to one side but it would have collapsed the tower so I didn't use it.

My mind recently keeps being drawn back to this, especially today when I have been struggling with working in way shape or form. Things have just been getting me down so I guess it is just one of those days. Uni technically finished today but I didn't find out till after I had left the campus and I was on my way home otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. Anyways I have to go in on Thursday to stamp all my work, we aren't allowed to use any of the machines so it will just be putting handles on all the mugs.

Whenever I have a bad day I wonder what other potters do to get through it

My Range As It Stands

Well I was told by my business studies tutor that I had to take pictures of all my range as it stands right now. I took the pictures with my wife's camera and without the black base, I'm not entirely happy with the results but I want to put them up to start getting everything in order for the degree show and starting the business.

My teacup, I made saucers for these yesterday I just need to trim and fire them(and make more teacups) the handle is just big enough for one finger to fit through, I really love these and can't wait to make more. About 250grams of clay
This is my Coffee cup it is quite narrow to drink out of, handle needs a little refinement. 300grams
This is much wider than the coffee cup and is about the size of a normal mug and is so known as my medium mug. 400grams
My big mug, 1 kilo of clay so is much bigger than the rest of the mugs and probably holds more than all concerned. This is the status of the mug after my tuition from Kevin Millward. Before the tuition the rim was just straight from the normal cup but he advised me that a rim like this was easier to drink from especially from such a large vessel. These size of mugs are most popular amongst students.


Tea light holds are only about 100grams of clay and are good at filling the gaps in a reduction kiln, I have plenty of them.

Soup Bowls with handles, these are 600grams, I have a lot of these as I thought they would be very commercially viable, my business studies tutor and head of course agree. Though I have been asked to make either a lid or a side plate for these, I will probably go with the side plate option as the bowls aren't all the same size so I would have to make a lot of various sizes and cross my fingers.

Other straight sided bowls, though this one is only slightly bigger than the soup bowl, it is actually 800gram of clay and has much thicker walls so then it could go in the oven.
Two of my bigger platters finally here for you to see, they are 2 kilos of clay and were made before Christmas, though I did throw some yesterday as my mark has finally come so I can stamp them and hope they are good enough for my show. My throwing of these has improved but yesterday I was throwing bigger ones from 6 kilos of clay and it was hard going with that much clay.
My first teapot, unfortunately I can't remember what weight went into this after seeing a demo on teapots, I prefer the top to be an in the pot as the lids for the sort with an internal gallery are easier to make the right size than the almost tea light holder that will have to go on top of this.

I have a few more different bits but then are either green or biscuit. I only have 5 working weeks to get everything done for the show, then 3 weeks where I have to furiously create so then I have enough stock for the summer and hopefully to buy a gas kiln from the proceeds (and some training to go with it. I need to take some measurements of these so then there is a little more idea of scale.

Different Clays

I have a couple of different clays hiding in my supply cupboard, there is porcelain, Arctic white stoneware and porcelain white stoneware and of course this earthenware clay called "surprise clay" surprise clay is from GreatArt.co.uk. Anthea bought me the surprise clay two birthdays ago to try to throw with, as it was a gift I was afraid to mess up so I have saved it until now. As you can see it swirls with colours through the middle, it is a combination of oxides and different sorts of silica as far as I can tell as it was like throwing with sand.

I threw the entire bag of clay on Thursday, I have a small reclaim pile that I am going to wedge and make some more pieces from. These are just a few of the pieces there were actually 3 boards full of things. It was interesting throwing with the clay, very different to what I am used to.

This piece actually started off a bit taller and a lot wider, I cut straight lines into the clay(faceted) and then stretched it out on the wheel, it shows how sedimentary the clay was. It was very sandy so you couldn't rest your hand on the wheel head as it was like sand paper. The clay wasn't made for throwing it was resistant to being thrown and was a very thirsty clay.

Yesterday(Friday) I threw some tea bowls off the hump, unfortunately I haven't done the technique more than twice before so I had quite a few unsuccessful pieces and what is left here don't always have flat bottoms, but Fridays for me are just the afternoons, as I have a business class in the morning.

This next week I am planning on taking pictures of every different piece in my range so you can all see it, piece by piece.

Finally the time is here

The time has finally come, today I unloaded the kiln, I underestimated how long this would take me, especially with taking lots of pictures added in to the mix.

The technician had already moved all the pieces that weren't mine from the top shelves which helped speed things up. But I basically emptied the kiln myself apart from the top level, it is really satisfying doing so much for this firing myself.


This is all a large portion of what came out as it was hard to get everything in one shot as there was so much. I had lots of questions as emptied, the most common of which was "what did you do to make the different colours?" Well the blue is Cobalt Carbonate and the red/brown is Iron oxide, the speckles are because of the lack of oxygen in the kiln as it fires.

I had three ruined pots today, two were because of clay/bat wash falling into the bowl such as this above, it has fused with the glaze and the pot itself.


The third pot that was broken had split through the base, I have been told that there wasn't enough compression when I was forming the base, but that bit has already been covered in my latest tuition. For such a large kiln I don't think a failure of 3 pots is so bad at my stage, as I had a firing last year where I lost every pot places in the kiln.

One of my soup bowls and large mugs, this was my favourite large mug from the firing, and I did it after tuition from Kevin Millward, I just need to go back to the wheel and make a good couple of dozen of these so then I have some to choose from for my final show, still need more practice with the handles.


Some of the different size mugs/teacups I have been working on over the last few weeks, still trying to decide which size I want for my farmers market range.


Looking for some concept shots to go on my business cards / on various design sites that I am planning on joining over the next few weeks such as Design Initiatives.


Just trying to create some interesting shapes, colours and tones

These are what the tea light holders look like right now, all grouped together showing that scale that sometimes pots need an object to show scale.
This is my favourite item from the firing, it has just the right blue to green ratio on the cobalt and the textures just seem to have run slightly, it is such an interesting pot up close. I have actually brought it home to show people as an example of my work.


I have a slight oversight on the platters I forgot to take some overall shots of them and I only have detailed shots, so I will get some more photos on Thursday. I do have plenty more photos to upload and talk about later.

Joseph