Paintbrush Pots and Raku Firing
Raku Fired Paintbrush Pots with Brushes
I make very few things for myself. Typically, the artwork or products I make are for exhibition or sale on my Palisade Posh online boutique. So, this week I thought I would write about the few things I have made for myself starting with paint brush pots.
Although I work in many mediums when I create art, oil painting is my first love, followed by working in clay. Being the practical person that I am, I decided to combine my two interested and make a container, or two, to hold my paint brushes. Little did I know making a simple rectangular form is harder than it looks.
For these vessels (I have a lot of brushes so I decided to make two containers) the first thing I did was to wedge the clay to get all the air pockets out (air bubbles can cause your work to explode in the kiln so this is an important step in the clay process). Once wedged, I then rolled out the clay slab to the various sizes I wanted for each pot. Then I let the clay stiffen up. Once the slabs stiffened up It was time to cut them to size, and start assembling the piece.
Before I began assembling them, I took my clay chop and stamped my signature into one of the walls. Then I started the assembling process. To do this, I beveled the edges so that they fit snuggling together and then I slipped and scored the clay. Scoring for those who have not worked in clay is when you make tiny slices into the clay along the edges, the slip is basically a watered-down version of the clay that you paint over the scored clay, and it acts like glue. Then you smooth out all the roughness that you just created so you have a clean, smooth pot. Then you wait for them to dry.
Unfortunately, while my paintbrush pots were drying, we went into lock down. When I was allowed to return, about a year later, one of the pots had broken and one had made it into the bisque fire. I retrieved the third one which was unfired and found a place to bisque fire it. If you reside in Denver and need a place to fire your work, I highly recommend Stone Leafe Pottery. They are very affordable and will happily fire your clay pieces!
After a year and a half, no thanks to the pandemic, I was able to take classes again at the Art Students League and finally glaze my pots! I’m a huge fan of raku firing and the white crackle glaze. When this glaze heats up it cracks and the smoke from the raku firing process gets into the cracks as well as the areas that aren’t glazed and makes it black. The end result is very appealing to my aesthetic sensibilities. Eventually my goal is to make more pots like this, so I have a cohesive set of functional vessels to hold various objects, or more brushes!
