Trying New Things

It's been awhile since I've posted, I know. The medieval faire went really well, despite a lack of visitors to the faire.I sold a few ocarinas, traded a few, and even gave one away. Got a lot of compliments, and most importantly got to talk to the other vendors and have fun! It has been moved to June of next year, so hopefully I'll get enough done by then to participate again.

I have decided to try some new things to improve my ocarinas, as there weren't getting any better. One is to focus more on the fipple block, which is the bottom of the airway. I think a lot of my problems start when the airway gets opened up too much and push down too far to direct the air stream in the direction it should go. So one thing I will try is making the mouthpiece separate. I thought this would be harder, but honestly at this point so much time is taken forming the mouthpiece anyway and I'm not getting great tones.

So yesterday I made a triangular-shaped ocarina with 9 holes. It's actually an English-style fingering system, but extended to make it the same as the 12-hole fingering range. It has very airy high notes, but they are there, so I'm excited.

Next I'm going to try a toroid ocarina, as well as a harmonic double with both sides playing in the same key and using a linear English fingering.

You can view my attempt on the 9-hole here.

Chugging Along...I think I can...I think I can...

This last week has been rather discouraging for me. First I made 5 belly shaped ocarinas (belly-rinas) and they took forever to make right (the voicing part.) Then a good night when 5 more went quite smoothly. Then back to a few circular pendants, and most of them also took forever, and a few hit the recycle bucket.

Then I tried two more sweet potatos, both of which ended up in the bucket after hours of trying to get a decent tone out of them. I have no idea at all why I can get a sweet tone from my English pendants, but not the sweet potato. I know I have had trouble with the larger pendant ones, so maybe it's the same problem. Diagnosing it, on the other hand, is not so simple.

Then there were the two sculptural pieces I was making for a friend. The one was the shape of a woman. I loved the sculpture. But when I tried to tune it, I couldn't get the last not AT ALL. So I tried shortening the chamber, keeping the sculpture the same. This time no low notes, AT ALL. So I shortened it yet again, and now have a soprano with the body of an alto. And you can barely fit your fingers on it.

So I also made a whale pendant. This one should have been easy, but no matter what I did - always airy.

The next morning I tried the woman one, and had lost both the high and low note on it. On half of my belly-rinas I had the shrill squealing high note that I can't seem to figure out where it comes from.

So I tinkered with the ramp on the woman and got it to play again. Tinkered with the belly-rinas, and I'm hoping they will stay okay through the kiln firing.

I wanted to to a smoke firing tomorrow, but we'll be out all day. So unless I can get one going in the afternoon, I'll have to wait until Friday.

I look forward to after the medieval faire when I can spend more time on each ocarina and maybe get this thing down to a "t". I have this idea that the sweet potato is more special than a pendant as more people buy them, and they more resemble flutes and instruments than do the pendant ones.

My friend from Yahoo Groups, Massieko, who received the ocarina I made for the exchange, has offered to make another exchange - one of his sweet potatos for a belly-rina. I'm all up for that as maybe I'll see something I don't see with my ocarinas.

Hotel Candle Holder

So I took a break from my ocarinas to try my hand at making a candle holder/tea light for my sister-in-law, for the hotel she works at. The owner of the hotel has three large candle holders she got from a potter who is now deceased, and she's interested in getting smallers versions to sell to her customers.

The design on the previous votive was a simple depiction of the hotel, with a few windows carved into the wall, and a water coloring effect of the hotel and trees.

So here is my leather-hard version so far:

It's not perfectly even, but I think once it's colored it will look a lot nicer. Hopefully she likes it and I can earn a little extra this way.

I then went back to my belly ocarinas, and the first five tooke me 4 hours to cut and tune. The next five, a day later, only 2 hours for the same. Then today I went back to more pendants, and made five and threw out 2.

I'm getting very frustrated that I'm still trashing as many as I am. I want each one to work out perfectly, and they're not. When will I learn well enough to make then each sing beautifully???

Getting There

Well, this week started out on a very sour note (no pun intended.) Our wonderful tomcat of almost 11 years suddenly passed away, and we are heartbroken. Add to that the fact that my three littlest ones have had fevers, I haven't gotten much done in the way of ocarina-making.

I HAVE, however, made progress with the few that I've done. I'm finding that it takes me less time to form the mouthpiece and soundhole just so so that I get a sweet, strong tone from the first note to the last. I'm also finding that for a few I have to lower the ramp just a tad to make those last notes clear.

I made Amber's monkey ocarina, which I think is cute, and the dolphin I'm making for my aunt, which sounds REALLY good. I am too tired to continue with more tonight, and this week is VBS so that's another reason I'm lagging behind.

I tried to buy a kitchen scale this week but Wal-mart was out of the digital ones, so I got a $5 one that says on the box "weighs up to 2 lbs." Well, since I'll be working in very small portions to begin with, I thought that would be fine. Until I got it home opened it, and found that it ACTUALLY only goes to one pound. Well, frankly I'd like it to weigh more, so I'm going to return it and see about getting a digital one.

If I can simply sell enough ocarinas at the faire to cover what I've spent in materials, I will be happy. But since we have a bill from our cat that we hadn't planned on, I'd really now like to make a little more. I am nervous, though, that no one will buy any...

After the fair, I look forward to just playing around with some ideas I have in my head...especially with the colored porcelain and stoneware.

Two Steps Back, One Step Forward

Okay, so the two halves seemed like a great, easy idea. Except it wasn't, at least not at first.

The problem was that I'm used to being "inside" the ocarina when I form the mouthpiece and sound hole. I can see all the stuff that needs fixed before I put it toget

her.

But when the ocarina is already made, I have to guess where to put the sound hole (can't tell where the drop into the cavity is...), and in this case, the drop was too rounded and didn't meet the mouthpiece exit, so all the air was going...nowhere.

After 7 destroyed ocarinas and many, many tears and shouting later, I finally thought about putting some extra clay in the spot that I squish to make the mouthpiece...and it WORKED!

I made 10 ocarinas tonight, and maybe one or two won't make the final cut. But at least 3 of them simply SANG...like honey! Sweet, sweet, sweet! From the first blow to the last...

Now to hope that someday they all do as well :)

Here's a pic of the older ones I did, painted for the bisque, as I'm hoping to try something "new" with the stamps...

One Step Back - Again

Well, I'm not sure if it was the size, or the way I cut them, but the larger ocs just plain gave me trouble. I tried imprinting the stamp BEFORE I cut them in half, but then I couldn't cut through the stamp mark, so I tried slicing it a different way, which made it harder to carve out and form the airway...

And then I realized I had completely forgotten something I knew a long time ago from a website that is no longer up and running. Basically you cut out a circle of rolled clay and drape it over half a sphere form, then let it harden a bit. (Two circles, actually, for the two halves of the ocarina)

Then I'll change it up a bit by pressing the space for the necklace cord and also pressing down the space that will become the airway. This way I will not have to carve any clay out, and hopefully they will be basically all the same, so tuning should be so much easier.

But I could kick myself for not thinking of it sooner...so I only did six of my larger ocs last night and today (and took WAY too long to tune...mostly the sound hole just kept giving me trouble.) I recycled the other four I had formed.

So now I have two ocs, one small and one larger, setting up a tad before I do the indentations and hopefully see if I can then tune them up. The stamps took the best in this method as there was a firm backdrop behind the clay, so that's a good sign, as well.

Pendant Ocs

Well, I decided to try for one weekend at the medeival faire that is less than half and hour from my house. It's a new faire, so there are not that many vendors. Of course, there may not be that many people attending, but I also won't have that much inventory!I settled on doing just one weekend, so I don't have to worry about not selling for 3 weekends in a row, and if I DO sell out, I'm not stuck for 2 weekends without anything to sell! So I'm going to try for the Celtic weekend, and I'm making some circular pendants for the occasion.

I'm trying something new by making a lot of the same sized ocs so I can quickly make the same rough shape several times over, and they'll be roughly the same size. Then I carved them all out at the same time, and then tuned them all. This went much quicker, and I was able to do 10 yesterday and the night before, though I threw one out due to a mistake I made.

But here's a pic of the ocs waiting to be cut - they are bigger than the ones I did cut:

And here are the smaller ones cut open:

Here are some leather stamps I got, which I like, but it's very hard to get them on the smaller ocs, so I'm having to improvise some...

Here are the some finished pendants:

I'm bringing some business cards I made up for the belly-rinas for my doula to try to hand out at the DONA convention, and we'll see how that goes. I'm really hoping for a good response from that.

I've also been tossing ideas around in my head regarding the designs on the ocs and the smoke firings. I think if I underglaze and then matt glaze the design, it will stand out just enough but not too much after being smoked. I hope it will look as good as I visualize....

I might also be making canle votives for a local hotel. I am hoping that by Christmas Jim can make me a home-made potter's wheel for little cost, and that would make that job easier. But it's another source of income if the owner likes what I come up with.

I'm really getting very excited that all this is happening. I hope I'm not putting my head too high into the clouds, but find I can't help myself. The closer I get to my dreams, however, the more terrifying it becomes. Failure is right there beside me, waiting, as well. The "what-ifs" crop up, too. But overwhelmingly the dreams and hopes rise up and take over and I find myself playing the ocarinas for the sheer joy of it...

I am also wondering if there are some books in the library that explain music composition theory...that is, I want to play some simple music on the ocs like the blues, or jazzy music, or celtic sounding tunes, or whatever, without having to have a song. And not necessarily making my own up, but just playing riffs that are familiar enough sounding that they sound good. That way I can demo the ocarina at fairs or festivals and play a variety of music without having specific songs to play.

I'm In Business!!

I made my first sale tonight, officially. Money exchanged hands...so I'm truly, really, fully, in business. I don't even mind if I don't sell anything tomorrow at the Sale Day here in town...I really think these Belly-rinas will find a niche...

And I am deciding to drop the price of the whistles down to $10 because I just didn't like the glaze. I'm still not sure exactly what happened, but it shouldn't have. I put it on too thick, and they look like it. But the whistles still work and are cute, so selling them is still an option, I think.

I also decided that I'll try for just one weekend at the renaissance faire, and that way I don't have to worry about commiting to the whole 6 days if it doesn't work out, yet I'll still get enough flavor to know how to prepare for next year.

So I need to start making some ocarinas for that, and my aunt commisioned a project from me...I'd like to make my own pendant oc, and one for Amber and Caleb. And then there's the few I need to make for Julie to take with her to the next doula workshop she's holding so she can try to sell them there.

And I don't even know when I need to start keeping paper work and receipts of the stuff I sell - or start charging tax...

But here's a pic of the whistles and ocs with the tag attatched:

I really like the look of the necklace all tied up - it looks professional. I hope the ladies enjoy them and spread the word. My goal? To make enough money to keep pursuing this hobby of mine...

I want to start experimenting with porcelain, colored porcelain, and paper porcelain. So between trying to make money, that is my next project.

Beeswax Finish

Well I bought some beeswax and melted it, then mixed it with some olive oil. It wasn't very smooth after it cooled, so I did add some more oil last night in the hopes that the consistency is more like shoe polish and won't flake as I apply it to my pieces.

But I polished all my smoke fired pieces, except for the belly-rinas, in case I re-do them again. The color definitely became stronger, though it wasn't a magical effect or anything. There was only a slight sheen as I didn't burnish most of the pieces. The two I did burnish have a nice sheen to them. I'll probably try to burnish every piece I plan on smoking in the future.

I got a few possibilities as for the glaze problem. It was recommended that I sponge down each piece prior to glazing to that the glaze breaks over the moisture instead of bubbling. Also, stir my glaze slowly, not lividly, as I was, which can also create bubbles.

And of course I know not to touch bisque, but since I never had a problem before, I figured I'll just wipe the pieces down...but perhaps there WAS oil from hands that caused the glaze to peel off in spots...which would explain some things.

Only time will tell when I try my next glazing.

I am contemplating trying to sell at a local new renaissance faire. I'd have to sell one ocarina a day for the 6 days (3 weekends) I'd be there, just to break even. After that, it'd be profit. If they sell at the price I'm thinking, that is. The hardest part, besides making a ton of ocarinas, is getting a tent of some sort, getting someone to watch the babies, someone to sell with me so I'm not lonely and can take bathroom breaks...

But the idea is so appealing! I'll have to talk it over with Jim when we get a chance. He's in Akron today for a football camp, and I'm still visiting my family here in Ohio. We'll cross paths tonight before I head for home tomorrow while he stays here until Saturday evening.

Glaze Firing Done

Well, I finally got all the pieces glazed and fired. I tried dipping some of the dishes for sake of time, but I think I made a mistake because the glaze pin-holed and in some places had large bubbles. On one dish the underglaze was peeling off. I'll have to ask around on my Yahoo Pottery group and see what might have caused that...

I was using a different glaze - Spectrum. Before I had Amaco. This one says to use one to two coats, but Amaco was three. The spots where the glaze was thick also turned milky. Kind of disappointed with that.

And once again, the top shelve of the kiln reached a whole cone higher than the bottom shelve, which is frustrating. I had a cone 04 in the sitter, and only the top shelve hit cone 04...so next time I'll try a cone 03 and see what happens.

I also re-bisqued my lady ocarinas, and smoke fired them again. But once again they turned out very dark...I'll also have to research that.

But otherwise things turned out pretty good, and I'm happy for that :)

You can view the pics here.

Two Steps Forward, Many Steps Back

I'm creating this blog in the hopes that someday it may benefit others who might learn from my mistakes. Or that at least I will learn from my mistakes, or perhaps that even people who might buy from me will be interested in the process of discovering this wonderful medium of clay.

I recently just started back up with my clay after a two year haitus. It was not on purpose, but surprise twins kind of threw me for a loop for awhile. Before that, I hadn't really gotten into my clay very deeply, either. I had done a total of 3 glaze firings, one at a friends' kiln before mine was hooked up.

So to say that I am a beginner is an understatement, yet it is also true that I have felt clay as my calling since 2007.

Recently I have been making ocarinas (globular clay flutes like the ancients used to make), and even more recently I've begun experimenting with barrel firing (or smoke firing.)

Barrel firing is a technique that allows one to fire clay at a low temperature in a container with sawdust, straw, or other combustables, and let it burn very slowly over several hours, which lets the smoke penetrate the pourous clay and leave shades of gray, brown, black, and even reds, greens or blues if you add colorants.

Well, my first two "test" firings came out terrific, considering it's my first try. But then the "real" one I wanted to do failed...twice. I'm not sure if there was two much air, or what went wrong. I'm using a popcorn tin as I don't have much to fire, and the size is perfect. But I punched holes into the sides, and the seam busted open, leaving a gap. The first time I fired it I used duct tape to keep it together. But this slowly melted and the gap popped open.

So I used a smaller tin this time around, and burnt my ocarinas (what I happened to be firng) instead. Some even had a few melt marks on them...

So after 3 days of trying to get a good firing, I have slightly burnt "pots." I know this is all part of the process of learning, but I also want to make these ocarinas the best I can in the hopes of selling them. It takes hours to make a good ocarina (all practice, I know), and I don't have the time to make them just to let them sit around here all day.

So in order to make myself feel better, I ordered two books today - one on smoke firing, and the other on coloring clay. I am extrememly interested in inlays and other coloring techniques, and even the lady who owns the "local" ceramics supply store doesn't know many people who "marble their clay." Apparently she isn't aware of the tons of OTHER techniques out there that one MIGHT persue besides marbling (which I hadn't even considered as I don't throw pots, yet.)

Anwyay, I'm taking a break tomorrow. But I need to do a glaze firing at the end of this week, so hopefully that turns out okay. And then it will be back to making more ocarinas, and hopefully some stuff for my kids (like ornaments and piggy banks.)