#water etching

My wisteria vessel is complete!

The surface is so textured. The lattice, flowers, and leaves are raised, adding depth and making it so satisfying to touch. The lattice was water etched, the flowers and leaves slip trailed, and all of it carefully underglazed (except for the bare clay of the lattice). The inside was glazed with Amaco honey flux, smokey merlot, and chun plum. Pictured here with a wooden lavender kit I assembled.

Shrimps is plates

Idk why I thought 2 toned water etching would be a good idea but

Okidoke

Mountain Cups

This is another go at the August project for Hobby Potter Life - water etching.

The etching

I used shellac (technically a shellac based french polish) as a resist medium. I painted it on in a jagged pattern to where I wanted it to be highest when I was finished - so the rim for one and the base for the other. I also painted it onto the base and inside of both before I started.

Then I used a damp - wet even - sponge to sponge away the exposed clay from the edge of my resist. Once the etching was deep enough, I painted it again, going over what I had just etched, to create a new jagged line further down. Repeat sponging, painting resist and sponging again, until I had 4 levels.

Firing

I bisque fired it next, and all the shellac burned away. I Made sure to wash it well before glazing.

The glaze

I used the test glazes from my previous post. I started with the green, and added a bit of blue for each level, to get 4 different shades. I painted them on carefully, but probably not thick enough. (I plan to make some proper brushing glazes using CMC gum very soon.)

The Clay

I thought I was using PB103, but it must have been reclaimed with a tiny bit of BRT in it, because it came out with some speckle.

While work's been routinely taking up about 12 hours a day for the past few weeks, I've gotten to play a little bit with new techniques!

I learned about water etching recently, and have tried it with wax resist in a little squeeze bottle, and bought some shellac to try out this week. You put the resist on bone dry clay (I haven't had luck, honestly, it doesn't flow well, but a brush may be the way to go- I've been doing it on leather hard then waiting) And using a damp sponge to erode the clay away.

We only fire low fire at my school, and this year I've had a ton of upper level kids experimenting with glazes/bought a bunch of flowy ones that break well. Hoping this technique lends itself well to what we're working on!

My family decided to do white elephant instead of secret Santa, so of course I've been thinking of making some weird platters to burden someone with. I've been sitting on a blocked "shrimps is bugs" crochet tapestry for at least 6 months now (literally, it's been on the back of the couch the whole time lol) and I wanted to get some shrimp shaped beads or something before I just slap dowels on it and call it a day.

I bought some 1"ish long squishy shrimp lures that tickled me, and it reminded me of those heroic treadmill shrimp.

19-3-2021

Today I spent some time researching different things you can do with clay in ceramics. While doing so I came across this video :

https://youtu.be/JGG4BXzSK14

Which showed me how I can use wax and a rubbing method with a wet sponge to wear away at the surface of my dried clay. For this process I used a crayola crayon to draw on my marks because I dont have paint on wax.