Finally Filling Up the Studio

Well,  I have been busy and with 2 weeks to go I am finally filling up the studio.  I do have to glaze it all unfortunately.

The tunnel kiln is shut down until after thanksgiving, so I will try to have some of this ready then.  I do have a small wall set up with fired work, but have to work on it some more.  Elyse has come to help me in the studio and has given me hope that I can get it all done.

Elyse in the Studio!

The pieces are pretty rough and I decided that they should remain that way.  Ironically, the glaze really covers them and smooths the roughness, sort of like snow obscuring the hard sections of the landscape.  It is pretty liberating to leave in the mold lines and imperfections.  I love the cartoonish branches.

 These arrangements really remind me of taxidermy dioramas from local nature centers.  If you ever wonder what is inside these nature centers, it is taxidermy of all kinds. Driving from Sheboygan to De Pere twice a week and then sometimes to Appleton, seems to have influenced this work.  The landscape changing to fall and then winter seems to have sunk in.

Whenever I feel like I'm filling the space, I just have to look at this picture of Sunkoo laying out all his tiles before packing.  He has filled 8 crates!

Well,  I'm off to Appleton tomorrow after finishing up a few things.  Happy Thanksgiving.

First big molds and casting

Finished up the rabbit mold on Tuesday.  Here are some shots of the process.  A very long process.  I do start to run out of patience and energy at the end.

2 sides poured.

ready for sides 3 and 4

I'll spare you the rest of the images and skip right to the end.  Finished molds!  They are not pretty or well made, but they work.  The only way to make really tight, beautiful molds is to be a very patient and meticulous person.

the positive peeking through

taking them apart for the first time

I made good use of the scraper and hammer!

For you skeptics out there, here is the result.

So I immediately began working on the third wall mount. 

I got it ready tonight and will begin making the mold tomorrow.  I'm not quite sure if I can handle the amount of plaster, but I'm just going to start.  Sunday seems to be my mold making day.

Looks like a lot of fun, right?

Got a few more tests ready and hopefully will start to get some stuff out of the kiln.

test birds

Another test piece

It looks like tomorrow will be a busy day.

Mold Marathon

After my visit to the Pumpkin Patch on Saturday, I headed back to Kohler to get down to some mold making.  I decided that starting two more complicated molds at once was enough. 

Ready to pour plaster

Only 5 more sections to go

After about 10 hours I made 5 sections.  Two in the rabbit and three on the dog wolf.

Not pretty

Instead of going home I decided to power through this third section last night.  I am reminded of how ugly my molds are.  I still haven't figured out how I'm going to lift it to cast.

Here is the finished big mold.  We'll see how it holds up in the dryer. I'm going to finish the other one tomorrow.

Here is my piece out of the kiln and some test birds.  I have to admit that I accidentally sprayed clear on it instead of white.  I'm going to try and label my buckets before I spray this time. 

I finished another small piece tonight after I came back from teaching, but will post it up here tomorrow. 

First Piece and Other Stuff

I have been too tired to upload all of these, but I have made my first piece to send through the system.  It should be out tomorrow.

This is mainly a test.  I have made a few more small ones, but they are in the kiln already.  Here it is sprayed and loaded.

You can see SunKoo's tiles and Hilary's buoy's next to it.  I also drew on some forms.  Here they are with the 'small' tiles.

You can see SunKoo and Scott loading them into the kiln.  Can't wait to see the really big ones.

Now that I have some of the small molds done, I am working on some larger forms.  These are finished and sectioned off to start the process.

Can't wait to see what the fired ones look like.  Headed home for the Pumpkin Patch later, but hope to get one section of each poured before I leave.

Molds and Positives

I cleaned up my five molds and started on a new positive, the first in a series of 6.  I alson drove to DePere to teach my class today.  I've decided that 5 molds is too many at once.  I start to loose focus as the day wears on.

just started this positive

the five molds ready for the dryer