testThis week I continued my Kewpie project. I made a new batch of slip, Mathers cone 10 (who would have ever guessed ME ? High fire ??) Absolutely loving the way this slip pours into the molds. I made a batch of babies and then since this casting slip can take it, I tested the colorful studio slips via sprayer. Very happy with the results. Two of the babies were murdered over the one day I left them (RIP to orange and that weird green grey.) I want to test fire these in the raku, cone 6, and cone 10 to figure out which finished I like the most (and see if slip cast pieces will survive raku). I have literally never purposely fired above cone 04 so this is new territory and I am shocked that I'm headed in this direction, but I suppose its time for me to learn how mid/high fire works if I plan on entering this field. 

I started off last week with a little luster tester, happy with the results but clearly fired a little too fast never seen luster run like this. Excited to use the luster again now that I have a better idea of how to apply it and fire it in the tester kiln.

Because of my slip addiction, I decided to use the boob cup mold and edit the piece to be a planter. I also covered this in a pinkish nude slip as a test. Really love the way this ended up, so I made another that is currently being turned into a mold so I can continue to work on the decoration of this without having to do a bunch of editing every time I take it out of the original mold. Super excited to make a bunch of these, and like my kewpies, do some testing.

Finally getting around to finishing a piece lol. I added resin to this little worm baby and I am so fucking thrilled with how it turned out, hoping to send this off to a gallery in Gainesville, FL called Moisturizer for a show "Sensual Clay" (why not Sensual Ceramics? Whatever when I write a book that will be the title anyway.) In order to fully finish this I want to make a little rug for it to be comfy on. This time, unlike the previous rugs I've made, I want to allow a more organic shape to form. I took a pencil and just circled around the piece and I'm going to just go around this first outline a bunch until I'm satisfied. I always attempt a perfect circle or oval and I have no idea why, I think it makes way more sense to have a conversation with the form and allow it to tell me what shape should be created.

Overall, feeling weird about where my art is heading. For some reason sculpting just doesn't seem to be happening for me right now, but my new mold interest is giving me joy so I guess I must follow my heart for the time being. I assume that sculpting will come back to me when we are both ready for a serious relationship, for now I am polyamorous with sculpting and molds.

Last week, after finishing up my bisque I did a low fire cone 04 glaze kiln. I finished my kewpie babies. I glazed four of them, and gave one with a broken booty to Mandi :). I wanted to explore ignorant style tattooing, sexualization, and fetish (specifically the idea of the "fucktoy" by using these children's toys.) I really enjoyed just trusting my gut with the underglaze on these. I used my old ass glazes on these the one on the left is a cream color (Banana Cream), the other two are clear (Eggnog) with the one in the center having a lighter coat than the one of the right. The one on the right has a hole added to its head since it did not end up standing, but I'm hoping for it to be a wall hanging piece. I plan on continuing this body of work further, will explain next week once I get the ball rolling.

Another fun little activity I finished with the glaze kiln were these dildo pieces. I made this dildo mold from the packaging of a toy, I am fascinated with how much goes into the packaging of toys, sometimes it seems that the cost is mostly the marketing when you buy a sex toy. From this mold I make two dicks, one being kind of a tile (center) I had some fun and shaved some clay to make the pubic hair, glued with slip. I wanted to color it between my classic lavender and an eggplant and landed on this color combo with the veins being lighter to highlight them (literally.) I then experimented with some resin, adding fake cum to the piece. I really like how this resin turned out. Finally the piece on the left is the actual use of the mold, I see it as a fun little display tray for condoms or something of the like. I wanted to use a bright color to reflect the insane color choices you see with sex toys, with a nice old glaze that is a fluxed bright blue to contrast against the dick color.

Did some fun wax play, including a quick demo of what I've learned for the class. Overall, I'm not happy with the way the wax come out of the Cum bottles, I think against the white of the bottle the wax looks too yellow/cream to be realistic cum lol. My little dick/butt child (I am unhappy with the form and the underglaze outcome) was a tester for the wax since this was the first time I had used a heat gun to apply the wax. However, I am VERY pleased with the way the wax looks on my fun vulva bowl, I wish I could take a good picture but the inside is an intense red glaze. I love the texture that the wax adds to the piece and the way it drips is perfect for making the genitalia appear to be aroused. I also love how it looks like cum or discharge when you allow the wax to be thicker/pool in certain areas. From these pieces, I learned that the wax must be used on a surface that is not white.

One last experiment was working with some resin on these cum bottles. After doing the wax and being unhappy with the outcome I wanted to see if i liked the way the resin looked on these. The resin is waaaaay too thin to look like realistic cum. But what I learned from this is that the color is perfect. I think with the other two bottles I have that haven't been bisqued, I want to create the cum with slip and then when they have been fired brush the resin on top instead of a glaze.

Finally bisqued all of the pieces I've been working on, luckily everything survived ! Only a few small cracks in one of the self love pieces. I added a clear glaze to the tongues/teeth and am happy with the results. I plan on testing some resin on other tongues/teeth, as well as adding encaustic wax to the mouths, penis heads, and vulvas. So far I've glazed the little penis plate and tile, which were just for fun testing a plaster mold I made of that design. I also have glazed the fun little titties, again just wanted to test a mold that was laying around the studio here. 

Some of my half finished Cetaphil/Cum bottles. I made so many just to see how the underglaze is coming out. I am unhappy with the way that these pulled out of the molds, some are too thick, others have dents, some were left with red clay on them. I plan on testing both resin and encaustic wax as little cum drips on these pieces, I have two more ready for bisque that will be the final pieces for my portfolio. 

Working on finishing up my little kewpie babies. Overall I'm not happy with the seams that have been left on these despite all of the fettling knife use and sanding the seams are very clear to my eye. Two of them did not stand after firing so I drilled in holes in their heads so that they could be wall hanging pieces. I've been free-handing the tattoos on these, inspired by "ignorant style" tattooing. I am interested in exploring the idea of sexualizing these little dolls, thus the label of fucktoy on all of these. These will be fired to cone 04 on Tuesday.