The learning curve

One of my tasks this past week was to pour a new Finn mold. Finn was the first horse produced as a Blackberry Lane edition. He was also my first foray into molding a full-body horse. I didn't make him alone; Joan made the rubber master while I watched and tried to absorb the process. I then brought the master home with me (much to the alarm of airport security in San Diego).

The training wheels were off, however, when it came time to make the plaster production molds. That's the first one I made, pictured up there. It is more than a little inelegant.

As I showed with the step-by-steps on the Imp mold, sometimes the master mold isn't a straight-forward representation of the plaster molds. For complex pieces (and we don't seem to make any other kind!), it's often necessary to make some of the interior pieces by hand. In the case of Finn, his ever-so-slightly turned head made it necessary to create a separate piece that covered the right side of his head and neck.

The trick with handmade pieces is that you have to envision how they work with the rest of the mold, and you have to do it on the fly because you are shaping the piece as the plaster dries. (You are also simultaneously trying not to get air pockets on the design surface and not spread too much plaster on the finished areas of the mold.) Needless to say, as the picture above shows, I did not get it quite right the first time. I ended up with an interior piece binding against another, which meant one edge fractured as I took the mold apart. Usually that just means you have some ugly flashing in one area of the casting (which works as a great reminder, every time you cast, of what you learned).

Unfortunately with this particular break, it also meant that when I poured the slip down the belly, it came right out through that little gap in the top. Of course, molds of new releases are never made except on a tight deadline, so it had to work anyway. You can see the staining where I have used blue and sometimes brown plasteline to plug the gap. It works, if more than a little imperfectly.

I made another mold a bit later, and it doesn't leak. But it's hardly much prettier.

It was interesting, then, to return to the master this past week with four years more experience. (Four years and a crash course on molding really difficult horses!) Of course, having a better sense of the word 'undercut' makes a world of difference. But there are little things, too, like not pouring the plaster too soon, or knowing just how much to jiggle the air bubbles out without shifting the rubber legs. As the picture shows, the 2010 mold is much cleaner. It also took a lot less effort.

I have been thinking about this kind of issue a lot lately. Those of us in the model horse community who work in ceramics have seen a marked increase in people wanting to learn various aspects of the medium. There really isn't any getting around the fact that that almost every aspect - molding, casting, glazing - has a really steep learning curve. It's made me think that to some extent, the most useful trait for someone taking up ceramics is just sheer stubborness.

My gambling problem

My family has had a good time for the last few weeks, teasing me about my "gambling problem". That's because PayPal froze my account on suspicion that I was running an illegal online gambling operation. So my father now refers to me as his "bookie" and asks to "put some money on the ponies". Fortunately I was able to convince the customer service representative at PayPal that what our community refers to as a lottery isn't really a form of gambling. My account was restored, but I was told I would need to remove all references to "games of chance" from my website.

I'm still not sure how this is going to change how I sell my work, but it's clear that whatever is done the website needs to be changed. I'm using the opportunity to reorganize the site and do a few updates. I am not brave enough to do a complete redesign, but I hope to give it a little more logical structure.

With that goal in mind, I have been working on a blog index of sorts. I've had the blog for three years, and have generated hundreds of posts. Some of them are even useful! I've tried several times to get Blogger's tags to work so people can better find the useful ones, but tags continue to allude me. So I am working on a page for the website with links to blog posts by topic. That way those looking for them can find all the posts on moldmaking, or all the posts on horse color, or glazing, or treehouses and catapults.

Brrrrrr!

I knew there was one potential flaw to moving the airbrush station to the garage. The garage had the space, but it wasn't heated. I'd been really optimistic that my high-powered space heater would keep the area useable in the winter. What I hadn't counted on was the unseasonably cold weather we've been having. Even with the heater running, the workspace out there has barely gotten above 40 degrees most days this week.

I decided this was nature's way of telling me that it was time to clean greenware. It's not the most glamorous part of ceramic production, but at least it can be done in my warm studio!

It's probably just as well, since the spray booth has been taken over by the guys and their Pinewood Derby project. It's probably not obvious from the picture, but this year's car is going to be shaped like a giant red Lego block. Thankfully Alan wrapped the booth with newspaper, or I'd be doing the rest of my painting (when it finally gets warm enough again) in a glossy red booth.



We really needed the spray booth a few years ago, when my older son was working on both his Science Fair project and his Pinewood Derby car. His experiment involved finding out if crickets, which are apparently omnivores like people, lived longer on a balanced diet of healthy food or soda and pizza. (For my friends who are parents, you don't really want to know the answer...) Since I am notoriously bug phobic, I insisted that the crickets live in the garage. Brandon and his father built an elaborate plexiglass enclosure for the two groups, and set it up in the corner of the garage. Unfortunately, it was the same garage where we'd later spray paint the Derby car. I can report that while crickets actually do quite well on pizza, they aren't at all compatible with spray paint fumes. Every last one of them was belly-up within the hour! It wasn't a sight to give anyone a lot of confidence about breathing the smelly stuff.

It did make me happy, though, to see that there was almost no smell this time around. I wasn't willing to bring in any test crickets to be sure, but it did seem that the only odor was coming from the paint on the car itself. Surely that must mean the booth is working for me, too.

Wrapping up and moving on

I was able to reach my goal of wrapping up the "Inspire" project before the start of the new (work) year. With luck they might even reach their destination before January 6, which is the twelfth day of Christmas. Each year I cut it closer and closer, which makes me think I need to give in and just say I send Valentine's gifts!

I did learn quite a bit, which is one of the benefits of doing these kids of projects. This was, for instance, the first time I had used a spray gun to apply an art glaze. That was one of the benefits of having the new spray booth. It certainly is faster than using sponges, which was how they were done before. What I didn't count on was the waste involved due to overspray. I had mixed a teal glaze (to the left in the picture above) that I wanted to use for all 25 tiles, only to run out half way through. I didn't want to delay things with a wait for more glaze, so I did the other half in a true green. Next time I'll know to mix a much larger batch for this kind of application.

I still have more plans for "Inspire", including the original purpose as a trading card. But working on those will be more like working on regular horses, since the materials are the same. After weeks of looking at teal and green, I'm ready to return to the world of silver dapple leopards and chestnut roan sabinos.

That meant cleaning up the studio, which had slowly been trashed by each step in the process of making the tiles. It reminded me that I wanted to do a more serious reorganization of my work space later this spring. Ten years of ceramic work is starting to show in the accumulation of mostly-worn molds, not-really-moist-anymore clays and glazes of questionable attractiveness.


I look at these shelves and remember telling Joan, back when I started, that I had no real interest in making my own molds.

These are the other things I've accumulated. The bottle to the right holds all my spent #11 blades. I started tossing them in the glass bottle thinking that it was a good way to dispose of them once it was full. I have no idea how many blades are in there, but it is 2.5 lbs worth of Xactos. Two and a half pounds of scritching! I guess it's safe to say I'm not inclined to developing carpal tunnel.

The second container holds all the used bars from my kiln. Each on represents a separate firing. It stopped being representative of all the firings done in the studio when I added the smaller test kiln, since it uses a Bartlett controller instead of cones. That's the kiln I use for most of my bisque firings, so it gets a lot more use than the big one. Still it's a fun reminder of how much use the kilns have gotten since I set up the ceramic shop. I have always thought that once it was full, I'd hold a guessing jar contest. That might be a ways off, though, since I've only managed to get it 3/4 full in ten years.



But massive studio reorganizations will have to wait until spring. For now I am just happy to have my countertops back.

Merry Christmas!

This little guy decided to spend Christmas dinner with us. He found that if he pushed on one side of the ring of ice inside the birdfeeder, it would tip and he could reach under and get the sunflower seeds. Emma was thrilled that we had installed the Squirrel Channel for her to watch, since we didn't seem inclined to share any holiday ham. (I suspect she would have been more interested in the squirrels than the ham, even if we had offered!)

So with all the festivities coming to an end, I went ahead and drew for my Hobbit Birthday giveaway. The winner was Teresa Fedak, who chose either a dappled buckskin or dappled grey. It was interesting that the most popular requested color was red silver, which was one color I hadn't though of doing yet. Thank you everyone who posted to the comments or sent in emails. It brightened an already lovely birthday to hear from so many!

I will post this guy when he is finished! In the meantime, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas filled with family and friends, and a prosperous and happy New Year!

A hobbit birthday

Today is my birthday, and true to the Hobbit custom of giving gifts to others on your birthday, I thought it would be fun to do a giveaway.

So here is the idea. I will be giving away the first realistically glazed "Inspire" trading card, and I'm going to let the winner pick the color. So if you'd like to enter, you need to either send an email (the address is on the website) or you can post here in the comments section. What I need is your name and the color you'd pick if you were selected. Your color choice will need to be pretty general, like "dark dapple grey" or "bay tobiano", but beyond that I'm open to most anything. Late Christmas day I'll randomly draw the winner.

Best luck to all who enter, and may everyone have a holiday season filled with friends and family!

[Edit: My email has a rather quirky spamblocker, so don't worry if you get the message that your entry has been blocked. I've been checking the filter and moving anything over, so it won't get lost!]

Production delays

Nothing messes up getting new molds into production like damp, rainy weather. I had almost forgotten this possibility, and was sure I'd get my Christmas gifts completed early enough that I wouldn't have to claim my "Episcopalian Exemption". (Episcopalians observe the twelve days of Christmas, so our holiday season runs until January 6.) After weeks of rain - and a little ice - it didn't quite work out that way!

But the molds are truly dry now and I'm really pleased with how they have been casting. I haven't gotten a chance to do a realistically glazed one yet, but I've been experimenting with the colored glazes. Each piece is different, so it takes a few tests to see which glazes are flattering. When I sculpted "Inspire", I envisioned the horse in realistic underglazes and the background in colored art glazes. That's not practical for my Christmas list (even with a 12-day extension!), so I needed to find a workable colored glaze. The horse is a bit problematic because he's not textured enough for the commercial art glazes, so they tend to pool irregularly along his neck and shoulder.

It's had me thinking about tiles and what glazes work best for me. I've long been enamoured of the bare stoneware and oxides that fellow tile artist Melanie Brooks of Earthenwood Pottery uses. I love that look, but I've come to the conclusion that my own sculpting style isn't bold and chunky enough for those treatments. It's tempting to come up with some designs that would work, but I am afraid those will have to remain things I muse upon while I finish up these pieces. Once they go out the door, it's back to casting, cleaning and glazing three-dimensional horses!



Getting back to Imps and Vixens is my next project. I've told my husband that his next project is to make some small wooden easels. Either that or I'm going to have to find somewhere that makes smaller acrylic ones!