New Etsy Listings - Clay Carving!

I listed a few new necklaces on our Etsy shop, FirelusterPottery. These new pendants were made using a technique that I've been trying; clay carving. Some people call it clay lifting, and that's a very good description of what it is.

I use a tool, that has a sharp edge, to cut into the leatherhard clay, and lift it from the surface. Some lines I carve with a scalpel. When the clay dries, I fire it and apply glaze for the second firing.

The trick with this is getting the pattern correct the first time. There is no second chance to fix a boo-boo. You get what you get, and hopefully, you did it right the first time. I liked doing the carving, but there is a definite learning curve. I messed up a few until I got the hang of it. Now I have a couple of tricks that help me get it to come out right the first time.

The first picture is a pendant made from cone6 porcelain. The flower design is carved into the clay when it's leather hard. I love the glaze; a sort of buttery color I call butterscotch. It looks just like when you melt butter and caramelized sugar together. The second photo is of another porcelain pendant glazed with Coyote glazes in Crazed Copper and Archie's Base. Those two together make a wonderful combination. There's lots of nice crazing with some frothy looking light blue in there, too.

The last photo is a pendant made from stoneware. This stoneware is from Axner, and has a good amount of grog in it. That made it harder to carve, but also gives it a lot of texture and character. The glaze is a green shino. I like how the green breaks to brown in the thin areas.

This is a technique I want to explore further. I have many more pendants to list, and will be doing that soon. I have a few earmarked for use in necklaces that will use beads I made earlier. Keep a lookout in my etsy shop for more additions within the next week.

Ready for the kiln

Here's a photo of what my pendants look like before they get fired. These are in the greenware state, which means they are basically just dried clay. At this point, they are very fragile, so when I paint them with underglaze, I have to be careful. You can see some of the pendants I have listed on Etsy; the Moon, the Flaming Eye, and a few others.

You can see the canvas covered board that I roll out and cut the clay on. For small things like this, it works great. To change colors of clay, I just change to my brown stoneware canvas board.

Uh-oh! I sold my avatar!!!

Well, there you have it. My theory worked. Someone bought my avatar, a bird porcelain pendant (thanks, The Silver Moon!). I know she's going to love it because it is so darned cute I almost kept it for myself! Now I have gotten myself into a delimma. What to do with my avatar? Should I keep the bird one? But then I'm advertising something that isn't in my shop anymore. Hmm. I'll have to think on that. Perhaps I need to always have one of these little bird pendants in stock. That might work! Anyway, a sale, yea!

Fireluster Pottery on the front page of Etsy!

One of my pendants made the front page of Etsy this week! It was my Modern Retro porcelain pendant in black and white. Woo-hoo!

I made this pendant like most of my others, cut out the porcelain clay and form it inot a dome shape, and paint the greenware with underglaze colors. This one has gloss clear on top to really give it a high shine. I love my high fire gloss!

The painted design is reminiscent of what was considered modern in the fifties. I think it sort of looks like a bunch of television screens, when I see those patterns. This necklace has an 18 inch black rubber cord with a metal clasp. It really looks wonderful with black or white outfits. I have one I made for myself and I wear it all the time. It's one of those pieces you can dress up or down.

Check out my Etsy shop; Fireluster Pottery for more ceramic jewelry, pottery and other goodies!