Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Phoenix Teapot Pt. II

What can I say, I like getting dirty! I was back in the studio yesterday playing in the mud again. Though, doing this stage of the process doesn't make nearly the kind of mess I like. After adding a rough outline last time, I continues with the basic carving.
Get the basic shapes scratched out and the edger smoothed and it's time for the third take. At this stage it's quite dry and the clay comes off in little flakes.
I have to be careful when I press in to make the indents that I don't just break the pot in half! Took lotsa muscle, and a steady hand. The third pass goes somewhat quickly, as I'm mostly making everything flow smoothly together- Scraping the scratch marks down and rubbing out tool marks.
After the pot dries I'll do one final pass before commiting it to the kiln Gods. My biggest worry is cracks between the phoenix and the pot.
Here, by the way is the Hiroshige Print that this is all based on, a lovely piece with excellent detail. I am looking forward to doing more pots like this, but I'm running out of cool mythalogical animals...

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