Tea Bowl by h a n s e n

glaze is half clay from my backyard and half wood ash from the grill and/or fireplace; & high temperature reduction wood-fired by Loren Scherbak.

Bagging the Clay

The amount of time I'll let this set may be a few days minimum, what with no clay mixer or pugmill. It will need wedging and more drying back naturally. See my earlier posts on images of this. Mixing your own clay means you know what is in it, and having only one ingredient eliminates the likleyhood of formulation errors. If you plan on using body clay in your engobe and glaze formulation, you aren't working with an unknown.

Mixing Clay

Basically I worked it up with the trowel for 10-15 minutes, slowly adding the water. I made it up as thick as I could stand, however this is still wetter than what it should be. This is intentional, because the first 24 hours of maturing, the water continues to wet dry clay particles in the mixture and it will stiffen considerably.

Hansen's Clay Mixer

The single-component clay body is extensively researched by the manufacturer. This will be an open-bodied mid-fire stoneware cone 4-8. I added plenty of grog as this aids the process when using no machinery.