On Monday morning I made a list of things i still had left to do. I thought id begin with the tasks that I assumed would be the quickest, I was wrong, everything takes alot of time. My first task was carving out the extruder handle plate. This was harder then i thought, the saw was difficult to set up and i lost the top layer of one of my fingers while sawing! Eventually I worked it out just in time for us to begin a demo by Rich on creating different clay surfaces. This was very interesting to see, there were techniques that I had seen before and some that I hadn’t. Stretching clay out when it has dried slip-on is a technique I’ve used before and loved the result of. Last year I looked at a ceramicist called Patricia Shone who uses this technique. After this demo i went back to use my new extruder plate in the extruder – it broke! I cut out the design again and had another go at creating extruded handles. In the end i did it and then i realised my mugs were bone dry!! GRRRR. But regardless i attached the handles and hoped for the best.
For the rest of this week I have just contiued making espresso mugs and attaching handles hoping for the best each time. Sometimes they come out okay, sometimes not so much!!