Preparing for Round III: Part II

Next, and last, in the process of preparing for firing, was copper wire. I had a brainwave and twisted two strands around each other for extra thickness and then around a pencil, spring-style.

Then I flattened the spring like this,

and wrapped it around the piece like a belt, like this.

This piece, as you see, had only a few curls.

 I hoped that the end result would be a wide swath of red, which I've achieved in the past. It wasn't, but it was pretty cool, not to say unexpected. You will have to wait and see.

Preparing for round III: Part I

We're splitting it up because I don't want to overload your brain with awesomeness.

Here are my last four pieces. They're the best I've ever made, ever. And they are a lot bigger than they look. Disregard cookbook and hipster Greenstar crackers. Take note of shears and copper wire. They come in in an exciting twist in part II.

This was my last firing so I wanted to try lots of things I had not previously tried. I ended up only trying 2 of the above things, but they worked, as you will see when you come to my show. Not if. When.

This is a cup of supersaturated salt water and a pastry brush.

I brushed the salt water onto the pieces. I had been going to spray them but no spray bottles were ready to hand. I did not know exactly what this would do, but that's kind of been the name of the game all along in this project, so what the hell. One of the pieces I got fancy and dripped the salt water down the sides in interesting patterns. The others just had a few all-over coats. I say coats, but the water is absorbed almost instantly into the still-open pores of the clay, and the salt is dissolved in the water so it is as well, so the pieces go back to looking just like they did before afterwards, which is why I'm not showing you an after picture.

That's part I.