Before the Fire

So you all remember the previous post where I showed off my new-to-me-kiln and the beginnings of Darcy's mold? Well, the mold has been finished and is a success!! I have two casts out of it and will be aiming for a third this week.

The casts have to dry out completely before being fired. Here is the first "bone dry" Darcy. All the casts are hollow, but at this point they feel deceptively hard. They aren't. I was sanding the bottom of her hooves to make sure she was perfectly level and that back right one popped right on off. I'm hoping it fires okay!

And this is a claybody custom in the "leather hard" stage. She's had all her pieces put together and has been out of the mold in my wet box for a few days. This is the point where I can really work with her and not worry about denting or deforming her. She's firm, but very easy to whittle away on. Notice the dark color of her vs. the above bone dry shots of the other mare. This is how much moisture content is in the slip! I'm not quite finished with the cleaning on this piece, but just about. 

I have to tell you just how much FUN it is to customize the clay! It's so completely different, and yet the same. You really have to have a soft touch, but once you get the feel for the medium it's amazing! Wrinkles are a breeze and come out SO nice! 

I'm really curious to see how this earthenware slip I bought fires. I had planned on buying the same stuff Karen G. uses but after months of waiting and bugging them, the supplier still hadn't made any so I had to look elsewhere. I've got a suspicion that this slip won't fire as "white" as the one I wanted. That's not a big deal for the initial few as it means they just won't have white markings as the white in china is made from wiping off the glaze to expose the bisque underneath. 

I've got a "fire day" with Karen on the 8th as the wonderful woman that she is is going to walk me through the firing process since this will be my first time (EVER) firing a kiln. First time molding and first time slip casting were successes so I'm hoping for a trifecta! Wish me luck. :)

A peek at what's around the bend

I'm someone who can't keep their hands still. I can't watch a movie with my husband without having something to work on. Unfortunately, I can't paint and watch the tube, as my painting requires one long focused session. Sculpting is another matter. Its great to fill those tiny 5-10 minute spaces. Below are pictures of three pieces that are very near completion. 

This includes an Icelandic Horse stallion. 

An Irish Draught mare - who is with Jennifer Buxton for prepping. Photo is shamelessly pilfered without permission from Jennifer's blog as I never took in progress photos like I usually do. 

The third is of a foundation-type Morgan mare. Her legs need thinning and her face needs refinement, but Laura Behning is helping me out with making this gal look perfect since she'll ultimately be a portrait model of her mare Willy Remember Me.

Next post should be of a round of completed finishwork horses!

I've gone and done it.

Done what? Well, gone over to the dark side of clinky ponies. Blame Karen Gerhardt. Or thank her. :)

Here's the thing with ceramics. You kind of need this rather important piece of equipment. Absolutely mandatory. A kiln. And for me, coming up with the expense of the kiln was the dam in my creative ceramic productivity. I knew I wanted a programmable one so I could let the thing go about it's business while I went about other business. I was wanting a small, but-still-large-enough-for-my-biggest-sculpture Skutt KM818 kiln, and have been searching for deals for the past year or so on Craigslist and other internet areas. Then, earlier this month I found the deal of the century. Seriously. I stole this thing. While it was much much larger than what I had planned on purchasing, we had the room and the price was too good to pass up. You really have no idea. 

So, one trip to Falcon, CO later and I am now the proud owner of this Skutt KM1227. The outside isn't all shiny sparkly new, but it's in working condition and the deal was good enough that I didn't care if it had some clay and glaze bits and bobs on the outer metal walls. One of the central elements needs replacing and a few of the bricks need replacing as well but that stuff is super easy. It's really remarkable how simply a kiln is built for the job it does. Repair on these guys is easy. 

My new (to me) Skutt KM1227 in it's place of honor in the front corner of our garage.

Obviously the crap around it will get moved during fires. :)

Here's a little size comparison - 

I'm 5'6" and as you can see the thing could easily fit me inside it!

So what am I doing with this Mama Jama kiln? I'm happy to share. :) For a while, it's been a dream of mine to see my sculptures cast in ceramic. Especially after Karen let another hobbyist and I play with her Boreas molds a couple of years ago. With the experience I've gained from resin casting and the knowledge I've been gaining on ceramic molding, I knew I could create my own plaster molds. 

Since Darcy was the first piece I produced myself in resin, I thought it fitting she be the first I produce in ceramic. She is ideal for the project as she is pretty simple as far as sculpture goes. She doesn't have some huge whipping mane or flying tail, and her body doesn't have a lot of undercut areas. All that makes Darcy a great "getting started" horse. 

Molding for ceramic is much different than molding for resin casting. Instead of being able to use a flexible material like silicone rubber, you use plaster. This means no undercuts as, unlike rubber, the plaster cannot bend around them to demold. What does this mean for Darcy? Well, unfortunately for her, it means this...

Now, some of you with light constitutions may be horrified at what I've done. But, like you do in bronze casting, it's easiest to separate the sculpture and it's protruding limbs and just mold things individually. This way, I'll only be dealing with 2-5 piece molds rather than some monster with 20-something pieces. Karen G actually just posted a fantastic blog update for those of you who want to see the process of casting and assembling an earthenware piece. 

My first extremity to mold is Darcy's head. I figured it would be the most complicated mold of the sculpture so if I could handle it, I could handle the rest of the sculpture! The mold ended up being 5 pieces. This is because I left the ears on. On many of these molds, the ears are one of those items that would get dissected from the body. In her case, I was inspired by Karen's "Optime" mold, which has this little backplate type deal. 

The working head to decapitated Darcy.

The end result - Darcy's head's 5-piece mold cube.

Below are shots of the individual mold pieces. There's some primer that stuck to the plaster in areas if you were wondering what the red and dark gray areas were. I'm really happy with the result. No air bubbles thanks to my vacuum chamber I use for my resin molds, and everything locks nice and tightly into place the way it's supposed to. 

The bad news is that now I have to wait like a month for this thing to fully dry before I can even think of pouring in the slip and get a casting. And I've got to finish the rest of the molds for this one sculpture. I've got her right front leg done and the rest of the legs will be easy so I decided to work on the body mold. At this moment, I'm half way finished with it.