Mr Belly is hard to photograph
he's had a stomach reduction since you first met him
and as you can see he's turned white.
& grown an outie bellybutton too.
He's unfired as yet, drying slowly
(thank you Seattle rain)
with a thick textured layer of white art slip for fur.
I'm wondering if there's shouldn't be a section here on
the life, aging and reproductive process of yetis
there's been lots of discussion around the studio.
My test 'tiles' came out the kiln.
and we have 2 winners:
the mahogany underglaze, on a wet piece
(top right) is warm and soft to touch
and has lovely texture and depth.
and the white casting slip on a wet piece
(bottom right) has nice texture and warmth too.
This needs more careful application...
as you can see red smears in this test
as the brush picked up the terracotta after a while
(the reddish hue towards the middle seam).
There was also a little cracking in the casting slip
(hard to see here) which I think would be due to being fired
when the clay was still wet.
Anyway, so the little fellas are going to be mahogany.
(Summer Yetis? or just young ones?)
and the 2 big ones (yes, there's another one you've not seen yet)
are going to be white slip.
I'm really enjoying working the texture with the slip
its very satisfying how its building up.
photos by the end of the week, before I set them aside to dry for final fire.
One of the things you do working in clay, is test tiles
to see how your surface, and clay body will react to decoration...
(glaze, underglaze, and coloured slip)
before you glaze the pieces you've been working hard on.
Below are today's test tiles - to see how I'll glaze my yeti's.
they are numbered on the back,
but here are my notes & unfired matching visual.
# 1 (botton right)
leather hard terracotta with white & black slip applied by paintbrush on top of 'fur' scratches
# 2 (bottom left)
wet terracotta black and white underglaze by brush, 'fur' marks on top of underglaze.
3 (top left)
leather hard terracotta with 'fur' scratches underglaze white and underglaze black applied by brush in top.
4 (top right)
Wet clay. Bump away from me: left side scratched then underglaze. Right side underglaze then scratched. Mahogany brown underglaze.
