today was the first day i was able to spend an unlimited amount of time in the studio.  i didn’t spend the entire day there, running out to drop off and pick up my bike from the shop, picking up lunch on the way, and shopping at the health food store (where i picked up some grains to go with my organic coop veggies) but i did spend a fair whole lot of it.  and i have to say i accomplished a lot less clay wise than i have been.  there were a lot more distractions being at the studio in the day time, but for the most part they were welcome, and i did finish up the tall bush today so that pretty much ruled.

i also did a little experiment today.  one of the members at the studio was interested in using gold leaf on ceramic.  she wanted to fire it on.  r had told her that it could be done, but wasn’t sure how to do it.  together we searched on the internet and found a few threads on clay art about it.  some said it couldn’t be done, some said you needed pure gold or silver, some said to fire it up to cone 022.  so i gave her a little bisqued plate i had laying around and told her to use it for some testing, that we could fire it quickly in the baby test kiln.  she coated it with leaf, and it looked great.  we suspected it might burn off.  it only took a couple of hours to fire to cone 022 in the baby kiln and before i left tonight i took a quick look.  it didn’t burn off, but for some reason the plate cracked right in half.  i don’t know what could have caused that, but on the up side, the gold leaf survived.  i’ll investigate more tomorrow, but it seemed to stick well enough to the bisqued plate, with no addition of flux.

here are some photos of today work.