August - Ceramic numbers

3 August 2017

 Trying a different way of making the little "foot" for my soap dishes

 Some of my "nature" numbers have cracked!

 I tried to fix them by adding a slurry of clay and vinegar

 but in the end decided not to take the risk of them recracking during firing

The zero recracked during firing.
I made a decision to rework the cracked 6, 7 and 8...

  so broke them up to resoften the clay and remake them. 

 Working on some numbers with imprinted butterflies.

 I hope they don't end up cracking as well!
3 hours

10th August 2017
A customer came into work during the week and asked if we had ceramic numbers for sale. I told her I was in the process of making some and could send her some photos of my nature numbers. She said she was looking for something around 3 inches high and brightly coloured so that spurred me on to make a second series that I'm calling "Colour Me Happy" numbers. (I plan on glazing them with bright colours in line with the "Colour Our City" Hundertwasser Art Centre development
 happening here in Whangarei

 First I hand-drew the numbers 0 to 9 on a sheet of paper and cut them out.

Then I traced around them onto builders paper.

..and cut them out. 

After that, I rolled out some white clay to 5mm thick, pressed a textured print over the surface and cut out the shapes using the  number templates.
3 hours

24 August 2017

 The rewetted clay after the broken pieces have been sitting in water. The water is decanted off 

and is now ready to rework into nature numbers again.

 which I did at the pottery studio on the 24th

 along with a full set of the smaller number series

They are a bit rough but I enjoy sanding them once they've been bisque fired.
3 hours