Come make pottery with me ✨

I’ve been dabbling with ceramics since the start of 2023, just not that regularly :,) I’ve been getting my pottery fix at richardlim_studio from Instagram!

Just wanted to share my progress on this coaster set that I’ve been working on. It’s been a huge bag of mixed feelings as well as headaches. But it’s been an interesting learning journey - minus the multiple detours along the way. And I love it so much!

I chanced across this Instagram post somewhere last year and I thought it was a pretty cool time I could make that’s pretty useful! So, I pitched this idea across to my teacher and he went, ‘sure why not!’.

So, here’s the steps:

Coasters >

I used a mix of light and dark brown clay, so you can see the marbling effect. I had to figure out the percentage of light to dark clay. So I went with 2:1 ( more white ofc). Coasters are surprisingly easy to make - because they consist of lesser clay, so it’s easier to center and to pull up the walls.

Then, since it was supposed to be fun, the 5 of them are coloured with yolo Color’s.

I even got a mystery glaze which I was told is the baby of the leftover glazes mixed together 😒

That’s the coasters part down. Then, the start of all the problems came - making the holder. It seems quite straightforward right, just throwing a straight cylinder then cutting out the holes -

No, I assure you, it isn’t.

Because at this point, the coasters were bisque-fired. This means that they have alr gone through one round of shrinking in the kiln, so I have to estimate how big the holder has to be.

And guess what, I made 2 holders that failed before making the one in the picture. (Those 2 because cups eventually).

Then > I went back to make the cover. But by then, the holder also shrunk a bit because of the water that evaporated out of the clay. So it’s another round of guess-timation.

So today, the holder has been fired and I thought all was well and swell. But!!! Oh no - something has to go wrong right, so the top of the holder, near the cutouts >:(

The top warped !!!! 😡

So I have to put the coasters in slightly diagonally. And since it shrunk AGAIN > it’s now just a nice and snug size for the coasters. And I can only fit 4 instead of 5 now >:(

Angery !!!

Should I reattempt this >:(

Still a good day though 🧡