Soft

Just for once I have no pictures to show. I'm so incredibly tired by the combination of job insecurity and impending fatherhood, which includes a perpetually sick partner...(she is not well...) I gave myself a little treat tonight and played with my clay down in my shed! It was partly for my own pleasure aswell as preparing for a very glamourous job on Saturday down at Hampton Court Palace in London. I'm demonstrating Tudor pottery for the day. We are touring the Palace looking at some of the ceramics in situ, then having a go at reproduction, unfortunately with air dry clay, but that's the only way we can do it without kilns and fire of course. I'm such a purest, I hate the stuff, but it serves a purpose, education wise. Meanwhile... in me shed, I've been playing with real clay, some of which I've had stored up for a couple of years. It stinks...! Stinky clay is good. It means it's old and pliable. It smells because all the organic products in it are breaking down and giving off methane (an eggy smell). It also means all the individual ingrediants, such as flint, silicon and quartz have all mixed and melded together, making a really pliable and consistant material. I'm going to bang some medieval replica tiles through the day centre's kiln tomorrow, they are going to be once fired. This means drying out the clay tiles, then coating them with a thick lead glaze. As the tiles are quite thin they should hopefully fire without cracking or exploding and also glaze over effectively. Lead glaze melts at a quite low temperature so should give a nice finish. This saves firing twice, which is the usual method. To give a nice aged, medieval finish, I'm going to sprinkle on some silicon carbide and iron oxide, which will spoil the glaze, giving it a bubbled and speckly finish. I forgot how much I love ceramics, it's basically modern alchemy. I am an alchemist! ">Link