Firing Day!

14 Nov, I start at 5am! Winters are coming in and Delhi is getting colder! But none of that bothers me. I start from home at 5:30am to get to the studio to begin firing at 6. We begin at sharp 6, but as one can imagine, we have "teething" issues with my first firing. The contraption that connects the cylinders to the burner is not in a good mood!!! We struggle for about 40 mins and get things to behave. We actually use two gas cylinders connected together with a rod that has a pressure gauge and controller.

Its 9am when I am when I am writing this and the firing is going stead.... I will later have another update here to let you all know how it went... and maybe some pictures too!

.. :-)

Diwali Action!

A very Happy Deepawali to all!

I have not been very active on the blog for some time now. However action at the studio has been steady but slow! Here is a quick post with me in action. I am working with a platter in this photo. I had my bro who is visiting us on Diwali who took the photograph. This platter was done two weeks ago, but thanks to good wrapping and having a damp sponge left inside meant this was nice "leather hard" even after two weeks!


I am looking forward to some more action over the next few days and hope to have enough to go through a firing cycle soon...

Sumeet

August and my Studio is Operational!!

Hello on this lovely Sunday afternoon!

Its been almost three weeks since I operationalized my studio. "Studio" at the moment is a humble room with just my wheel and a shoe rack! Well everything has to begin somewhere!

I have been spending my weekends here and things are slowly but steadily falling into place. I got my wheel!! Then got a shoe rack converted into small storage space and a worktop.

I got my first lot of clay delivered, about 10 bags of 35 Kg each, so a total of 350 Kg of clay...

I also poured a plaster bat that I will use for wedging and reclaiming clay. Its drying of as I write this and hopefully be ready when I get in next weekend.

With all this I have been busy throwing some pots too! Did few odd cups, three no-lid casseroles of three different sizes and a small vase.

I looking forward to lot more action in the coming weekends......



Light

June & July

Hello everyone, its been some time that I updated and posted on my work. June and July were interesting months. I could not make it to all my classes as I was on business travel in between. I have worked upon many new shapes during the last two months. I will soon publish a photo update on my work over last month and a half.

Setting up my small little studio saw some recent progress. I plan to set this up in another apartment that we have. Till yesterday it was rented out, finally after working with the tenants for over 2.5 months they vacated the apartment yesterday!!! This weekend I will try and get my wheel bought and setup.

Recently, I also met another friend and very experienced potter Rahul Kumar. I visited his studio in gurgoan, its nice little studio, very cosy and beaming with activity. Rahul was teaching two of his students when I visited him. On this visit I also picked up my first batch of clay body, this is stoneware claybody about 100 Kgs in total. So time well spent!!

So more later, as I said, I will put up a post with pics of what I have been doing in June and July...

Take care...

Light...

Last Three Weeks

Last three weeks have been hectic work wise, I was out travelling on business for a week. However I found time to do some really interesting work in the studio.

Since my last post, I did a set of bowls, a set of largish cups and a lidded storage container. As I said before in this set of 2 classes my focus will be to do sets, hence learning to throw repeatable work. My first set was a set of bowls. Initially I though they came in very nice. However, as I worked on them to trim and finalize I think the issues were visible. Below are the bowls now completed, turned and ready for bisque firing.



Next, I did a set of largish cups. As the shape was done free form the first cup was easy, but the challenge was when I had to replicate another 5 to match the first one. I struggled during the second pot but by the time third was thrown I got hang of how the replicate this interesting shape.




next up was handles for the cups. This was a struggle, I need lot of practice pulling handles, I am pulling them uneven at the moment. The cups above with handles look something like this now.



It was yesterday that the cups (above) got their handles and trimming and then I did a small lidded storage can. This is going to be interested, for the first time I threw a knob up lid directly from the clay hump. The picture below is how the jar and lid looks. They were freshly thrown when this picture was taken.



More soon....

Whitelight

Two Cups and I complete my first 20 classes!

I have started pottery classes with Indu Rao in early March 09. The class is structured in batches of 20 classes each. I finished my first batch of 20 classes last week with making two beautiful cups. Both came through very nicely and I now have them ready for bisque firing. One is a large tea cup with a handle!

I ended my first batch very satisfied. I have now begun my second batch, now the focus is on learning to make sets and then later on glazing. I did my first set of 5 bowls that I will write about soon in my next post.

First Lidded Jar

With Plate and cup completed and trimmed and ready for bisque firing, I was ready for something more complex. In this class my teacher had some photographs of pottery works and asked me if I would want to do something from them. I chose to do a lidded jar. I was not very confident but my teacher very supportive and helpful. I began with throwing the jar first, the shape came well. Next I did the lid upside down, I was helped a lot with this but got my hang of it. In fact next class I trimmed the jar well but ruined the lid and had to do another one. Luckily I still had my measurement from the last class and did the lid quickly. Then came the knob and it was all done.

Some recent work in progress

Over this and the last week I worked on a small plate (my first) and a small pot. Both are now trimmed. Please find some photographs of them drying out.

Light...

Some great Pottery resources for beginers

Here are some great pottery resources that have inspired & helped me....

1) http://www.youtube.com/ The best resource there is!!! It has some great potters posting regular videos of them at work, some of my favourite ones are:

sleachpots - Simon Leach, from the Bernard Leach family, some 400+ videos one of the best on youtube.
timseepots
offcenteredpotter

Lots of great video series from Expert Village

2) http://www.ceramicartsdaily.org/ - Once you subscribe to this wesite, it send you a daily newsletter with interesting topics in the field of pottery and ceramics...

Light...

My first Pot

OK!

I am in 10th class when I am allowed to retain my first pot. This is a small bowl, my teacher helped me do the "foot". This was later bisque fired and is now glazed...Matt white glaze... ready for final firing...

Light..

Whitelight Learning to Pot!

I have started learning pottery some months ago. I plan to share my experiences as a beginner and a student of this wonderful art on this blog....