The Bonsai Blog of Andy "Stone Monkey" Pearson

There are some new pots on my website here at  www.stonemonkeyceramics.co.uk 

Regards

 Andy

For you pyromaniacs out there here are a few shots of my Gas Kiln in action when I fired it last. The pots fired will soon be on my website for sale

The spy hole

One of the burners

The kiln in reduction with the flame coming out of the chimney

Just a short post to say that I will be at Gingko this weekend with one of my local Bonsai Clubs, Sunday only. Look forward to meeting friends and customers alike in the Bonsai World. As with past Gingko’s this is one show in the Bonsai calender that should not be missed.

Regards

Andy

I decided I needed to do something different the other day. The slab work was not”floating my boat” the wheel work was making me dizzy and I was all accented out. So I decided to go back and make some pots they way I started out making them by COILING.Not only was it relaxing, threaputic and a little time consuming compared to other methods of making pots, I had so much fun making this way again. The pots are still green at the moment but I thought that I would post a few of them for your deliberation. I was pleased with the results…

When I first started coiling I squeezed and rolled the coils by hand. Now I have the luxury of an extruder and it makes the coil production so much faster, leaving time to concentrate on the pot itself.Here is the last one which was a challenge to coil to say the least, but I got there in the end, sorry the pic is a little blurry. The pots will be fired in a few weeks along with many others. I shall post when fired.

These pots are all around the 30cm x 24cm mark.
Here are some bigger pots approx 50cm x 40 ish. They are “green” at the moment so they will shrink a little

My first Kiln was electric and I now use Gas. Even with the same glaze on the same clay body in a different part of the gas kiln yields different results. Talk about confusing!! Every time I galze fire I always do a couple of glaze tests to see if I can achieve a colour or finish that is acceptable for the Bonsai Pot Palette.
Here are a couple of examples…

This glaze, intended for Accent Pots was on the top shelf in a greater reduction atmosphere

And the same glaze 2 shelves down. This one is slightly more satin in finish than the one on the top shelf which is very dry and matt.

Once the technique has been mastered then the possiblities of building different slab pots can be adapted to suit different shapes.

I decided that I want to add a lip to this pot so I used this method of cutting individual stripes and joing all together to form the lip of the pot. They are then all attached to the pot.

So the pot looks like this…

All joins are reinforced and trimmed to shape,

Then the wall blended to the rim that has been attached

And again reinforced on the inside of the rim.And your pot is finished! I then bag the pot completly to allow the moisture to balance out, this is very important to minimise cracks and fractures in the clay.

Once the main body of the pot is constructed the next stage is trim the base flush with the wall of the pot. There will be a faint join line which will need to fill in an made good.Once this is done then the feet need to be considered. I have several pre cut templates for different feet and this is the one I am going to use on this potOnce the feet have been cut offer them upto the pot and mark out where they are going to be positioned… Then attached them to the pot…Trying in holes can then be cut into the base of the potThen the base of the pot is cleaned up and now looks like this.

This is one way building a slab pot that I have been using for a number of pots that I have made. There are other way of making them using a basic shape plaster mould, but I will show you how I use this method.
The first stage is to cut all the pieces required from rolled out leather hard clay
Once the rough shapes have been cut out then they can be joined together. Each join must be “scratched and slipped” together to form a good bond. However we are working with clay in two different states here, sloppy and leather hard, which if not cared for in the correct matter later, can lead to cracks appearing!

The pieces are then joined together firmly and a coil of clay is used to reinforce the join to provide maximum strength.
All four sides are then joind togther to form a bottomless pot
The slab base is then offered up and the box is marked out on the base and drainage holes are cut according to requirement
Then the walls are attatched to the base by using the same method as joining the walls together
Finally the join between the bottom of the walls and the base is reinforced with a coil of clay as we did for the corners of the walls.

From the 18-20/05/07 May Iwas at the EBA meeting in Ostend, Belgium . It was great to meet like minded people and friends in the Bonsai and Bonsai Ceramic world.

The event was here at the Thermae Palace Hotel, right on the beach front. It ws a beautiful location.Here are a few pictures of my stand where I was selling my pots. I even sold two pots to Walter Pall…
Some of the trees were fantastic, my congratulations goes to John Pitt for his award for the superb Acer palmatum that he put into the show. My pictures came out a little ropey to view all the trees visit http://walter-pall-travelogues.blogspot.com/ and read the excellent coverage that Walter has put on his spot