Saturday, January 2, 2010

I did it!

For the longest time, I have been trying to make a basin sink. They are huge and I failed several times. Paul keeps begging me to try again because you can sell a handthrown sink for starting at $500. The reason it is so difficult is because of the size. The hard things about trowing a bowl of this size are these..centering an entire 25 pound bag of clay is really physically exerting. Once you have the clay pulled into a cylinder, you have to move the walls down into a bowl shape and because of the weight of all that clay, the walls generally fall down. Usually I can salvage the base and end up with a normal serving bowl as you can see in my second attempt tonight. first of all don't mind my hair. My sleep is all turned around after staying up for new years, so it's the middle of the night. Tonight I had major success though!! I used a different clay that is a rough sort of clay that holds it's shape well. I also used a lot less water than usual, because less water helps the walls to stay strong enough to not fall down. This is difficult though because if there isn't enough water & your hands stick, it throws it all off center. I am not super in love with the shape but I am so happy I finally did it! I can't wait to show Paul when he wakes up!! It is 20 inches wide and probably the largest thing I have ever made in one piece. A problem though because my kiln is only 16 inches wide : )
I thought I was on a roll so I should try again, but this time I used a different dark brown which is a lot softer & it fell. but I made it into a pretty serving bowl. I also made 11 mugs tonight.

4 comments:

  1. I'm so proud of you Brooke!! Great accomplishment, I can't wait see it all done!

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  2. That is awesome. I guess you'll be getting yourself a bigger kiln.

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  3. Hi Brooke, I looked at your etsy site; love your beautiful work! Especially the zebra bowl and the gorgeous "glowing" lime bowl. Mmmm!

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