For a while now I have been making up my own higher
iron clay body which throws rather well and looks nice when fired but I began to
discover that it has its limitations in regards to man-handling it. The more I
push, shove, fold and alter, the more it was just not happy with the process so
I set about altering the formula a bit and here is the latest incarnation. I
will start off by saying that there is not a lot of large particles in the mix
and I don't use grog, but this test seems to respond well to be folded,
altered, pushed, pulled and stretched out. The illustrated bowl was thrown
round with a slight waist and then it was folded up to an oval form and then I carefully
stretched out the clay above and below the waist to create a bowl almost twice
as wide as it was when it was thrown. As you can see, once tooled I applied a
thick slip that I combed above and below the waist and am now keeping my
fingers crossed that it doesn't collapse before it dries enough to be stable.
Provided it makes it through the bisque and glaze firing, I will post up the
finished piece and conclude the newest clay body will allow me more latitude
when working with it, after all, a potter has to know his clay's limitations.
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