Recent Tiles

ByJoseph Travis

For a while I have been thinking about tiles as an act of experimentation, they are something that can be created in the fraction of time for throwing, there is a lot less focus that goes into creating them, no hunching over the wheel.  In some ways they are quite disposable. I don’t generally use tile for glaze tests as they don’t have gravity and thickness’s similar to pots but I do use them to test ideas, patterns, new  and more recently my saggars to see what effects are possible.  In these sorts of ways the tiles are part of…

Announcement! Woodworking for Potters

ByJoseph Travis

I have been considering this for a while but this week I went and I did some filming at the day job. There is still a lot to get to grips with my canon when it comes to film and more than likely they will come up in this mini series. So here it is the announcement: So far there are going to be four episodes with a fifth one planned. Throwing Stick Cutting Wires Name Stamps Throwing Ribs With saggar making planned for filming soon. So here is a sneak peak of some of the tools I made: At…

More Saggars

ByJoseph Travis

So this week I made some prototype saggar formers and saggars, I mixed my own clay with sawdust, grog from broken pots and some molochite for added strength.  Now if I didn’t have a deadline I would let them dry over two weeks, but I had a deadline so I force dried overnight and fired the next day so you will see some cracks in the larger saggar. Also if you want to make a saggar former don’t leave such big gaps as the clay can get stuck in them making the harder to remove.

Tommy Kane – An Excuse to Draw

ByJoseph Travis

So recently I picked up Tommy Kane’s An Excuse to Draw, as a treat for myself as I reached 400 days in a row sketching, and painting.  I showed the start of the process on instagram but the randomness of my skill level changes daily and is still very frustrating. I probably wouldn’t have shared this book but there was something I discovered with the first few pages that really hit home with me.