Mixing Green with Red

Nothing better than a bowl of freshly whisked green tea!

The picture does not do justice to the beautiful green color of the matcha with its distinctive foamy head.

This tea was made in one of the bowls from my recently completed tea set (see earlier post). The outside is stained with iron oxide and manganese dioxide. Tomato red glaze was used for the inside of the bowls. Fired to Cone 10 reduction.

Tea Bowls and Hot Water Pot, 2010

For the past two years, the Irvine Fine Arts Center has sponsored their annual Spring tea set exhibition. It is a quiet event for ceramic artists and potters working at the IFAC to showcase their work and enjoy each other's company over a nice buffet dinner.

Unfortunately, this year the center has been so booked with shows and exhibitions that we won't be able to have this rather unique event. I was so looking forward to it.

This would have been my entry for this year's show, "Tea Bowls and Hot Water Pot." All the pieces are hand-made (no wheel here) from my sculpture paperclay. The outside texture is my distinctive "rice" texture. Iron oxide and manganese dioxide is used to give the deep brown to black color. This time I opt to use the Tomato Red glaze for the inside of the pieces, instead of Celadon. (I have too many pieces with Celadon and wanted to try another color variation). I think with freshly whisked powdered tea ("matcha"), the green frothy texture will play nicely against the rust red of the Tomato Red glaze. The bamboo tea whisk (called "chasen") and scoop ("chashaku") is store bought. I have been using them for over a year so they are getting nicely aged. Eventually the tea whisk will have to be replaced from normal wear and tear. The wooden stand of high quality birch plywood was specially made to display and complement this set.

Size: 14"W x 10"D (size of tray) x 10"H.

Here are the direct links for my previous entries.

2009:

http://anthonyfoo.com/TakeOutTea.htm

http://anthonyfoo.com/RiceTeaSet.htm

2008:

http://anthonyfoo.com/AnemoTea.htm

http://anthonyfoo.com/EmptyCalories.htm

Enjoy the tea sets!

Blow Out Big Time - sometimes even cooked rice does not work!

This is one time when even cooked rice added to my paperclay did not survive the bisque fire. Large chucks from the sides of my hand pinched bowl blew out during the bisque fire. I cannot figure out what is causing this as the piece was bone dry when it entered the kiln. It had also been drying in my studio for several weeks prior to the bisque fire. These kind of failures happen once in a while (about 5 - 10% of the time) and I'm still trying to find out the common underlying factor.

I use left over cooked rice and sometimes I let the rice dry out for several days. When I leave the rice out for too long, they start to dry out and get hard and crusty. Then I rehydrate them to soften them up again so I can wedge them with my paperclay. Could this affect the outcome? Perhaps some moisture still remains within the clumps of rice causing the blow out.

This method of making my hand-formed bowls and cups takes so much longer to make than if it had been thrown on a wheel. The successful end product, however, it worth the effort.

Perlite and Paperclay - Part I

I've used several type of inclusions with my paperclay. They range from sawdust, wood chips, straw, rice hulls, and cooked rice. Recently I had a chance to try perlite mixed with my paperclay. Perlite is an inorganic material that is used as a conditioner to improve the aeration and water retention properties of soil. I got my bag of Perlite from Home Depot in the garden department. In this test, I was curious to see what the voids look like after the bisque fire.

The picture on the left shows a simple pinch form made from paperclay mixed with perlite. The amount of perlite used is just an estimate; enough to give some kind of texture. It survives the bisque fire without any problems. The form is extremely light. After sanding the outside surface of the form with a metal rasp, the random voids can be seen.

Compare this with the sphere on the right side (it's part of a sculpture I'm currently working on). It this piece, I used paperclay mixed with cooked rice. The mixture was applied as a thin coat (about 3/8" thick) over a bone dry paperclay sphere using paperclay slip as "glue." Many more regular shaped voids can been seen all over the bisqued surface of the sphere after sanding.

I was hoping to see more irregular voids from the perlite. I do see that some of the perlite still remains trapped in the bisque ware. I find the perlite from the bag is more varied in size, some ranging from size of coarse sands to around 1/4" in diameter.

I want to take both of these to high fire (cone 10 reduction) and am curious to see how the perlite behaves. I know how the paperclay mixed with cooked rice will behave as I have been using this technique for several years. I'll post another entry in the blog once I have completed this test.