Osmosis Launches New Range

Today I thought I’d blog about the new range of Mug and Mug Cosy sets launched by Osmosis this week. You may (or may not) already know that Osmosis is a joint venture between me (potter…) and my sister Sue who is a textile designer. We have a shop on Folksy called Osmosis where we list unique homeware designs using both disciplines – and this week we’ve been adding a new range of mugs and mug cosy sets.

Our new range is designed to be even more exclusive than the last because everything about them is handmade. My new mugs are hand-thrown as usual but this time I wanted to use my white gloss glaze inside and out to create a very simple but versatile design. The aim was to allow Sue to choose any colour she wanted for making the mug cosies (since all colours go with white) rather than have to complement the colour scheme with the glazing. It also means the mugs are very striking and show off the new colours beautifully.

Sue has used pure natural wools in her mug cosies so they feel even softer. Each one is hand knitted in moss stitch and features Sue’s own design label. Finally, we decided we wanted to make this range even more ‘handmade’ so each mug cosy also features one of my handmade stoneware buttons in matching simple glazes.

We’re really pleased with the results and hope people like them as much as we do! We’ve already added three of the colours onto our Osmosis shop on Folksy and will be adding more soon: so please do have a look if you get the chance! In the meantime though, here's a final composite shot of our mug sets being made showing the mugs coming out of the kiln (in black and white) and some colour matching ideas using wool and buttons during one of our creative 'brain storming' sessions!

Buttons and Bags Revisited

A few weeks ago I took some photos of this lovely clutch bag made by fellow islander Gill from Gillian Chapman Felts in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. This beautiful bag is one of a series Gill has designed using pure Jacobs fleece. The material has been hand-felted using a wet felting technique and the finished bag features one of my raku buttons in white and mushroom crackle glazes. I think the subtle tones of the wool and the subtle glazes on the button complement each other beautifully – and it’s always so nice to see my buttons being used in other people’s work. You can visit Gill’s Folksy shop here.

I have to say taking these photos proved a bit of a challenge for me! These days I’m fairly used to taking photos of my ceramics and have some inkling about what light will work for which glaze or what angle looks best for a certain shape. But until this shoot I didn’t realize how tricky it was to photograph textiles! The lighting needed for textiles to remain true to life in terms of colour is totally different from ceramics: or at least so it seemed on the day! So trying to get both the fabric and the button in proper focus and in true-colour-likeness proved for a long and tricky afternoon. In the end these three photos were the best shots of the day. But you can also see this bag and two others in this same style on Gill’s flickr page here (probably should have taken it to the beach to photograph too!)

Glazes and Garlic

Over the past couple of days I’ve been sorting through a selection of small accessories that came out of the last glaze kiln. These included buttons, brooches, pendants, rings and miscellaneous ‘blanks’. All of these little pieces require some finishing touches. First I usually smooth them all using sandpaper to soften the edges and make sure they don’t snag on clothing or feel rough against the skin. After sanding I add the fittings like brooch backs and ring findings (I use Araldite as a ceramic fixative and the fittings come from my local bead shop). I also thread the pendants onto lovely new suede thongs and individually attach each button onto card in singles or matching pairs to keep them together. All in all it takes a day or two to go through all the pieces - choosing which items go best with which fitting (and also trying not to glue my fingers together). But it’s all worth it in the end I think – especially now I have a new selection of jewellery and buttons (with brand new glazes!) for my next show.

Talking of which…our next show is coming up very soon. My sister Sue and I will be sharing a stall together again (as Osmosis) at this year's Isle of Wight Garlic Festival next weekend (14^th and 15^th of August). It’s our second year at the festival. Last year was very good for us and we had lots of interest in our work, so we hope it will be successful again this year. We’ll be exhibiting in the Arts and Crafts marquee on site with lots of other local artists and craft makers - and there’ll be plenty of other attractions over the two day event including live music and lovely food stalls with garlic to eat of course! So if you’re in the area, please do drop by: here’s a link to their official site.

And I just wanted to thank Helen again for featuring my bowl on her lovely blog last week: here’s a screenshot, and here’s a link to her blog too. Thanks!

Open Studios

This year my sister and I (as Osmosis) are taking part in the Isle of Wight Artists’ Open Studios 2010. It starts this Friday (16th of July) and ends next Monday (19th of July) so it’s not long to go! We’re exhibiting in Freshwater on the island and will be sharing a venue (Freshwater Parish Hall) with 5 other artists including painters, sculptors, jewellers and other craft makers. This means visitors will get to see a wide variety of arts and crafts all in one place – so there should be something for everyone! You can see our listings and find out more details here.

In the meantime I’ve been busy planning what to take to the Open Studios in terms of stock – but also putting together details of the display. In fact the display part seems to take the longest! Since it’s a four-day event this time, I decided I needed to think more about how to show off my buttons. Normally I put them in wicker baskets or arrange them flat on the table: but this really doesn’t show them off properly. So yesterday I had a brain wave and re-commissioned my cork pin board from the studio. I gave it a few coats of white paint, pushed in some nails, and hey presto, a simple, lightweight display board for my buttons! And it cost me nothing because I already had everything to hand. Anyway, these are some shots of the result.

I’m really pleased with it. I think once it sits in amongst all my pots and other display pieces it’s going to look a treat.

Anyway, wish me luck!

Buttons and Bags

Just wanted to mention this gorgeous bag pictured above. It’s made from pure Jacob and Mohair wool mix in a natural stone grey and hand crocheted in one piece by Deb Scudder of pipistrelle. And (you might recognise this) Deb has finished this beautiful bag with one of my little raku buttons in a mustard and white crackle glaze! I think they work beautifully together and I’m so pleased to see my little button doing what it was intended for! This truly is a unique piece: and you can read a more detailed explanation of the making process in the listing for this bag in her folksy shop and also her blog.

And here's a close-up of the button before it found its true purpose in life!

Thanks again Deb!

Raku Aftermath

(Raku buttons available here)

It’s been a few weeks since raku firing and I’ve been busy with the ‘aftermath’ – if that’s the right word. Debriefing? Raku is never a straightforward process and unlike ‘normal’ firing methods which means a pot is pretty much finished as soon as it’s out of the kiln, raku ware requires extra work at every stage, even the last.

First of all I had to give all the pots a really good clean. When the pots first emerge out of the sawdust they get an initial scrub to get the worst of the carbon off. But for some reason this is never quite enough and when you inspect them the following day, you realize there’s a lot more residue still to clean! So out come the brillos again…

I’m not sure what other raku makers do but I also find that raku pots can feel quite rough even after cleaning, particularly on unglazed areas like the base and - in my case - in the ‘black stripes’ I leave as a part of the design. So at this stage I always smooth all my raku pieces with fine sandpaper on all the blackened areas where the body of the pot is exposed. You have to be careful when doing this however that you don’t sand the pot too much! Because raku pots are low-fired they don’t fully vitrify like normal pots and so it’s much easier to actually shape them with sanding and accidentally expose the ‘un-smoked’ body of the pot underneath.

And then finally once I’ve done all this cleaning and smoothing I give them a quick polish with normal furniture polish and a yellow duster! It sounds somehow sacrilegious but I find it works wonders: it buffs the glaze and lustres, and enhances the exposed areas so they show up a deep matt black. I’ve heard people mention things like using beeswax on raku pots, especially on ‘resist’ or ‘naked’ raku items: but I tried this once and found it left a sticky, unpleasant coating which I didn’t like. Old-fashioned furniture polish (the type that comes in a flat tin to use on old wooden tables) however, works on exposed areas too - if you buff well enough afterwards.

So as you can imagine, considering I had about 50 raku pieces from this firing, this took me another couple of days! In the meantime I’ve also been photographing the results and making notes about the glazes. The photo at the top of this entry shows just some of the buttons from this firing: two of these have now been listed in my Folksy shop. Hopefully I’ll get around to putting some more raku in the shop soon.

Raku Preparations

Well it’s April, the weather is dry and warm and that can only mean one thing – it’s time for raku! I’ll be glazing on Thursday and then hopefully firing on Friday and Saturday. So far the weather reports suggest it will stay dry and won’t be too windy (wind is much worse than rain when you have fire and sawdust everywhere!) – so with any luck we’ll have perfect conditions.

In the meantime I have a busy week ahead making preparations. I’ve already sorted out my buttons, pendants and other little odds and ends which you can see in the photo above. They don’t look much at the moment – bisque ware is always the least inspiring stage in ceramics. These are made from stoneware with a little bit of grog added. I’ve given them a quick sandpaper just to smooth off any sharp edges, then I’ve wiped them back to make sure they’re free of dust. Then I’ve brushed a small amount of wax resist into the holes on the buttons and pendants to discourage the glaze from getting too clogged inside. This should help speed up the glazing process.

I also have a selection of small bowls, some coasters, some jars with lids, some incense holders and maybe a plaque or two to prepare. These also need a quick sanding and a wiping over with a damp sponge before I start glazing. In all I think I’ve got about 70 pieces of bisque for the kiln. Hopefully I’ll have a good survival rate and maybe a few successes too! Who knows? But it should be fun anyway.

If I get a chance to take photos for blogging I’ll try – but it’s hard to use a camera while wearing thick gloves, a pair of goggles and a face mask…!

Tubes of Paint

Ceramics seem to have taken over my life. Prone as I am to small obsessions I realize that most of last year was taken up with making-and-baking pots. And this blog too has mostly featured ‘pots’ so far and very little ‘paint’. So today I thought it high time I blog a bit about painting.

Let’s start with the basics - materials. I currently use acrylic paints on canvas. I usually buy through local art shops, partly because I like to support them but also because I love browsing and need items immediately (being too impatient to wait for the post). I buy the same brand of paint throughout so all of my stock comes from the same manufacturer which at the moment is Daler-Rowney. There’s a logic to this: you become familiar with the brand and their ranges, you get to know how the paint feels to work with - and the paints themselves should be compatible with each other. (I’ve heard for instance that if you mix two different brands together they don’t always like it; but this could be just a marketing ploy!)

Of the Daler-Rowney ranges I usually opt for a 75ml tube (which are the chunky tubes about 14cm long) from the ‘system 3’ range, partly because it’s cheaper but also because it’s fairly free flowing and quick to dry. (I also tend to be impatient when painting and don’t like to wait around for things to dry!) And then sometimes I buy a tube of ‘Cryla’ heavy body acrylic colour in a 75ml tube - or the smaller 38ml tube - also from Daler-Rowney. This is a thick, dense paint which gives more texture. These are more expensive and have a tendency to clog in the tube if you’re not careful about putting the caps back on properly, but they give more depth to the surface where the ‘system 3’ alone might sometimes seem a little flat. I also usually buy a white in both systems – this means when I mix I have the choice to use a free flowing white or a thicker, more textured white to beef up the colours.

Most of the time I use only water as a mixing medium and rarely use any ‘fixing’ varnishes. I’ve tried acrylic mediums in the past but found them too fussy and the varnishes too creamy over the surface which seemed to take the edge off the colours somehow. Maybe I wasn’t using them right? Anyway, at the moment I avoid them and prefer the matt finish the acrylics give just on their own.

And those are my paints! Just an intro I suppose and I haven’t even started talking about the colours I use…but I’ll leave that for another day and another blog entry. In the meantime though I just wanted to mention one thing about ceramics before I go! Today I found out that my turquoise buttons were featured on I Love Handmade Blog. So thank you Kev for choosing them! Here’s a screenshot but you can also click here for the blog entry and here for my buttons.

Bye for now.

Osmosis Launch

(buy this mug and mug warmer set here)

Snow has stopped play. The temperature in my studio can only be described as perishing. I’ve given up trying to do any work in there. Instead I’ve spent the past couple of days curled up on the sofa with several blankets doing ‘admin’ and drinking lots of hot tea (occasionally alcohol) in an effort to keep warm.

Just before the snow descended however, my sister and I managed to launch our new project. We’ve been doing local craft fairs and markets together for well over a year now and during those pauses in between talking to customers we’ve been hatching plans to set up a small collaborative craft shop on Folksy to showcase some of our design ideas.

My sister Sue (who also lives on the Isle of Wight) is a textile designer, handknitter and handweaver who mostly works with wool. The inspiration for our project came from the materials we use: we noticed during our craft shows how gorgeous Sue’s handmade woollen textiles looked against my ceramics. It was a logical step therefore to start coming up with some designs that would incorporate both of our craft skills. Our first design project – my rustic mugs and Sue’s handknitted mug warmers - can be seen pictured above, posing in my snow-bound garden. You can also see these listed in our new Folksy shop Osmosis where they can be bought as a unique gift set. We hope to add more designs soon.

Other news. Just wanted to mention that a few days ago my white buttons were featured on the lovely gooseberrymoon blog as a part of a snow-inspired post. So thank you again gooseberrymoon!

Well that’s it for today from the Isle of Wight – all puns intended. Officially ‘snowed in’ and steadily running out of milk...

New Year Buttons

It’s a New Year and I’m looking forward to working on some new projects. I’ve spent the last couple of days making plans and writing out lists for developing my range of ceramics which hopefully I’ll be blogging about in the future. In the meantime though I’ve started to re-stock some of my basics. Today I’ve been making some buttons here pictured above freshly made and drying. (These buttons are currently available in my folksy shop in white and turquoise.)

At the moment while the weather is so cold and damp, things are taking much longer to dry in my studio. In fact it’s taking several days even for buttons to dry out when normally they would be ready by the evening or at least next morning. Some small flat items are also curling and warping which I don’t normally have a problem with. Initially I tried to avoid this by flipping the pieces over at various intervals to even out the drying on each side. This eliminated some of the curling but not all of it. So I’ve had to sandwich the pieces between sheets of newspaper and small planks of wood in an effort to keep them flat. Of course this means they take even longer to dry, so perhaps the logical answer would be to bring them into the house to speed everything up. At the moment though with clear nights and frost lasting all day in the shadows, it doesn’t feel much warmer indoors!

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll soon be moaning about things drying out too quickly. In the meantime however I just wanted to say Happy New Year to anyone reading this; hope you’re keeping warm!

Homemade Ash Glaze

It’s been over a week already since Bonfire Night. When it isn’t pouring with rain or blowing a gale (like it is today) we usually mark November the fifth with a little bonfire in our back garden. Out come the sparklers, some bowls of hot stew and a bottle of wine.

I mention this because I’ve recently thought about making my own homemade ash glaze. So this year I decided to collect the ashes from our bonfire ready to do some experimenting. I’ve heard that the type of wood used to make the ash makes a difference to the glaze; although at the moment I can only work with what I’ve got. We usually just burn whatever’s combustible which includes huge piles of prunings from our overgrown garden and the odd bit of unwanted plank. This year the fire consisted mostly of freshly cut rosemary, some donated logs from a Eucalyptus, a pile of green whips from a pair of unidentifiable copse-like trees at the back of the garden and some out-of-date paperwork. Not entirely scientific then.

I also decided it would be a good idea to put a couple of pieces of bisque ware and green ware straight into the fire. Like a pit firing. No glaze of course – just straight into the red embers with a pair of tongs at the end of the evening and left to keep cooking overnight. These were just small things like buttons which I half expected to never find again. However, a day or so later (it rained the next day) I found this little button (pictured above) peeking out of the ashes along with four other pieces that survived intact.

As for the ashes, these had been fairly well washed by the rain. I’ve no idea if they will be suitable yet. They have a lot of carbon in them. In fact I may have inadvertently made myself a batch of charcoal instead as many of the green twigs have become nice little drawing sticks! Anyway, I’ve collected the best of it into a bucket which I’m storing in the shed while the weather’s so bad. The next task is to sift through it all and separate out all the chunky bits. I shall report back my findings when they are found…

Glazing Methods - Buttons

(buy this little button here)

8 egg cups
4 salt and pepper bowls
16 large stars (xmas decorations)
18 small stars (xmas decorations)
8 medium square buttons

That's how many things I glazed yesterday. It looks like a recipe for a long and busy day. And so it was (there were moments when I wondered why I was doing all of this). I admit that glazing is my least favourite part of potting. I suspect I'm not alone in that respect; and glazing very small items like buttons or xmas decorations is time consuming, fiddly and can seem like cutting a lawn with a pair of scissors. However, somehow I got through it all with only the occasional set back (lid of glaze bucket falling onto freshly glazed button and spoiling it). In fact I even managed to get a system going, which after a couple of hours generated a kind of rhythm all its own. So I thought I'd jot down this method for future reference.

Here's what I did. I put a button or xmas dec face upwards flat on my palm and submerged it horizontally into the glaze. I held it there for a few seconds then brought it up again making sure it stayed horizontal so the glaze settled smoothly on the face of the button. Then I carefully picked it up by the edges and popped it down - face up - onto a damp, flat sponge.

That's the easy bit. The tricky bit is getting the button cleaned up and presentable after its little dip. All my buttons are glazed on one side only and fired flat on a kiln shelf. This means their base has to be wiped clean. And the easiest method seems to be to grip the button at the edges and slide the base along the sponge. A couple of wipes in different directions and the glaze should come off completely. Then I usually let the button stand on a clean work surface for a minute while I submerge a few more.

Perhaps it's a little obsessive, but I also clean all around the edges of buttons and xmas decs with a small piece of sponge - this guarantees no glaze can leak down the sides. This is time consuming though; especially with five pointed stars...

Finally I get a pin tool to clean out the button holes. When I first started to make buttons, this finishing touch was my downfall. At the last moment my hand would subconsciously shake and and I'd score a nasty scratch into my perfect glaze. So to avoid this I started to unclog the holes from the back. Unfortunately, puncturing the hole from the reverse often causes the glaze to crack, weaken and small chunks to flake away. But then I realized if I dipped the pin tool in water first, the little droplet would dampen and dissolve the glaze as it was pierced and protect it from cracks. And this seems to be the best way to unclog the holes. The water naturally dispels the clog and (after a quick wipe with the sponge on the back of the piece) leaves a clean finish. Genius! Of course this is probably how I should have been doing it from the beginning. But I've never read anywhere or heard mention this little tip. Perhaps it's supposed to be obvious? Self evident? But I've rarely found pottery to be either of these...Well anyway, I've decided to take total credit for it!

So there we are: one method for glazing buttons and other small, flat accessories. Let's hope they all work!