The process for creating the slip "powder" I use for all of my slip trailing and/ or slipping and scoring is made after crushing and destroying the lessor greenware (un-fired) pieces that never made the cut.
These are the pieces I create with the slip squeezed threw a hair dye applicator onto a plaster bat.
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Breaking apart big pieces of un-fired clay pieces with a large wooden pestle. |
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Still breaking the pieces! |
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Crushing away! |
I used to use the Mortar piece that went with the wooden pestle, though I had so much to crush it wouldn't fit so I learned that just rolling the pestle against the table crushed the clay chunks even faster! Yay, learning!
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After crushed, the powder gets put through a rusty yet still fine sieve. |
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At the fine powder stage, I would normally add it to water but here I am saving it in a large poring plastic tub for later! |
The fine powder is later added to water and sieved a second time to make certain that all of the larger chunks of clay are eliminated so the slip can be squeezed out of a tiny hole! I have also added different oxides and tones to color the slip for later work!