#ceramics101

I have acquired some rock hard clay! Joy... This is a 25lb block. Dry. Solid rock. I have 3 of these to try to rehydrate. I started with one already and had some fair success and did so quite simply.

I've done my fair share of research on how to rehydrate clay, asked some seasoned potters, and such. Much involved drilling holes, or putting it in a bucket to turn to mush.

I wanted something that wouldn't require TOTALLY reprocessing the clay. So on a whim I poured some water in the bag with one of the rocks. Dug a couple divots in the top and added some water. The divots were maybe a half inch deep, if that. I then tied that bad boy shut TIGHT! All the water went to the corners of the bag which is not optimal...I put it in a small tote and squished it to one side so the water level was most of the way up the side of the clay. Added some other items to keep it mushed.

I let it sit a few days, cracked it open today, flipped it while still in the bag, divots are now down. The clay that was at the bottom? Now viable, albeit wet, clay. After about 20 minutes out the 3/4 inch slab was dry enough to roll and form.

Let me start with my issue (not personally, those are too many to list), my ceramic issue, glaze to be specific. I picked up some new glaze recently, however it is from a small joint that doesn't sell glaze often so their new stock is usually rather old... In particular the colors and glaze types I'm into tend to not be so popular in this shop. SO, the "new" glaze I bought was dried out. Like barren desert, rock hard.

Like any semi-sane, logical, person, I stabbed some holes in that rock and added water! (Bad move! I'll explain later.) Well I stabbed and stirred, and stabbed and stirred, to no avail. It was just too dried out!

At this point I considered throwing them in a blender with water and crossing my fingers that I didn't die. But, I was talked out of this plan...

So on to some brainstorming. An electronic cheese grater came up. I tried it. AND IT WORKED SWIMMINGLY! For one whole minute. Then it got too clogged up to continue, and only a quarter of the jar had been grated. I wasn't cleaning the ENTIRE machine 3 more times to get it to work so the grater went out the window. This is however, where me saying adding water was a bad idea! If the glaze would have been dry I could have grated to my hearts content, but that dang water!

The next idea was an OLD coffee grinder. Coffee beans, hard glaze, what's the diff? Am I right? Kinda right actually. The coffee grinder did the job surprisingly well enough. Again, it would have been so much easier if it were dry, I did have a pasty caking issue. I had to keep scraping down the sides like dough in a stand mixer.

This is what the coffee grinder looked like after a wipe down and rinse of the lid. This will be the biggest hurdle, because I have more dry colors to rehydrate. I'm going to let it dry completely and then use a toothpick and q-tip to get it out of the nooks and crannies. I still totally suggest doing this with as dry of glaze as possible to prevent clogging and caking. Also! Definitely use a coffee grinder YOU WON'T USE ON EDIBLES EVER AGAIN! The leftover residue could be very unsafe if it got into your morning brew or whatever other food you may use a coffee grinder for. Have a designated GLAZE grinder!

This is the result. Hopefully, a texture much easier to rehydrate. I'm considering leaving it totally dry and whizzing it through the grinder again to get it as fine as possible. But we'll see.

The many emotions of working on art! This has been me recently. I have unfortunately neglected this blog because of all I have been juggling and trying to figure out. It took me weeks to organize a way to EFFICIENTLY create some digital art so I can work on another aspect of my designs, both for other ventures AND my ceramics. Due to bad coordination on my part, using a drawing tablet on a computer is impossible for my brain to wrap around, and working with archaic technology, it was a lot of trial and error to find a workable solution. FINALLY however, I did! And with an old, like circa 2014 tablet (you know AnCHieNt), and a god send FREE program Autodesk Sketchbook Pro, I was able to create the rough draft above. I now have 3 finished outlines AND 3 finished color pieces! I've been BUSY.

My next step will be some digital storage organization and a couple mini projects to get this show on the road.

Due to my work on this my ceramics have been put on a bit of a back burner. I still have some things in the works and shop updates on the way, but I really wanted to get my digital art up and running to make some aspects of the business more efficient. I also didn't expect doing so would take SO long!

Now that most of the situation is organized and some life things have calmed down I'm hoping to actively make more time for my Racer projects and my ceramics. I have some glazing to do! All my remaining pieces are rather detailed which means cutting out some decent chunks of time to paint, but I'm on it!

Check out my latest shop updates! And the ones COMING SOON! HERE ⬇️