November 20, 2021

Ceramic slip casting course day 1 <3

By Shopify API

For more than 5 months I have been waiting to go for a creative slip casting course in Frederiksværk not too far from where I live.

Today was the day and it was just so much for and educational. A while back I "accidentally" browsed Ebay to see if I could maybe buy some molds that are vintage and i stumbled upon a tray and and a large candle holder. I bought them from the US, knowing that they might not arrive safely.

One of them was broken, but not more than that I could still use it, so today I brought them to the course to try out.

The course started with an introduction to casting liquid porcelain clay in plaster molds. The whole idea is that you pour the liquid clay into a mold of plaster, and because of the caractheristics of Plaster, the liquid from the clay is soaked into the paster and leaving 3-5 mm of hardened clay all over the mold. After 20-30 minutes the middle of the clay liquid is still liquid and you pour that back out of the mold, leaving only the hardened clay behind.

Once the clay dries up, it shrinks about 17%, is it no longer sticks to the mold.

You can then easily turn it over and the item is released and is ready to be sanded and checked for any small irregularities etc. As you can see below it casts beautifully but the bottom needs a little TLC with a wet sponge and a sharp knife to be even

Tray mold from 1977 - I love it!

Once out of the mold more TLC is needed and there are different methods to get the look just right, and that's why I wanted to do a course, to get the smaller but very important details right.

So fast forward 7 hours later, and I made 3 trays, a bonbonniere, a candlestick holder, and 12 Christmas ornaments.

The last part of the day was clearning up - boy it's a messy hobby!

Finally we were all asked to chose our very favorite color of glaze, so that we can glaze all items tomorrow.

After we left the course, our instructor stayed behind and added all the participant's items into a very hot Kiln at 1280 degrees Celcius overnight.

Just arrived back home, and can't wait to get back tomorrow and continue <3

Blessings

Sys