Settling into making with porcelain
Over the past six months I've developed a mostly love relationship with porcelain... however every now and then creations go pear-shaped! Quite literally.
Although in all fairness to myself, out of all of the creations I've made during that time there have only been two large failures - which will turn into good test pieces.
Those failures though have prompted me to look at how I work with porcelain in regards to my designs and forms, and what I may need to try differently in the future.
I've learned that hand building with porcelain requires certain guidelines. For example - I cannot use slabs which are too large - they flop! So instead of one larger slab, I might use two smaller ones - this works better.
Also, I need to rest my slabs on plaster bats for quite a while to stiffen up. The plaster draws the moisture out of the clay, which makes it more manageable to use.
Have you made anything with porcelain before? What sort of obstacles have you overcome? Or, what have you learned as you've worked with it?
Thanks for reading,
Lee-Anne Peters
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