The Last of the Turquoise Lagoon

This blog post is Part 2 of the first Lagoon Turquoise Blog Post found here.

It's all gone!
Thirty-three pounds of Lagoon Turquoise Porcelain Pottery Clay.
There is a translucency to this porcelain, even though it's colored turquoise.

WHAT DID WE LEARN utilizing this porcelain?
What would we do again?
What would we NOT do again?

My son, Dennis and I are colored porcelain ceramicists.
We color our own porcelain (Standard 365 porcelain) with Mason stains to create one-of-a-kind functional pottery.

When Sio-2 clay manufacturers developed this turquoise blue porcelain - Lagoon - we just had to give it a try. After all, it's already colored for us, and it IS porcelain. What could be better?

Personally, I believe that this clay is beautiful on its own, and we are used to embellishing with sgraffito, mishima, nerikomi and neriage on our own colored porcelain. Because shrinkage percentages differ from our colored clay, it would not be wise to add our colored porcelain to this turquoise porcelain. It would have been asking for trouble; the unmentionables - cracks!
Carving is fine, and accentuates the turquoise color and translucency of the porcelain.
At the end of our turquoise Lagoon adventure, I wish I'd done more carving on this porcelain.

Turquoise porcelain is on the cool side (color wise), and I prefer a warm color to glaze flowers on.
This may have been the most important observation for me.
When rubber latex or taped designs are removed from the bisque surface, the porcelain color under the lines of the artwork are visible.
This means the lines visible under my taped and rubber latex designs were a cool blue, instead of a warm, pale titanium yellow.
Think grout lines on a tile design or mosaic. 

Because turquoise is not a neutral color, we could only decorate our pottery with specific colors. For instance dark turquoise, dark and bright red, white, purple, brown and black look good on turquoise.
Most greens, yellows, oranges, and even some blues do not look good next to turquoise.
In other words, our palette was LIMITED.
By using a neutral colored clay, MOST glazes and underglazes will work.
This was not necessarily a bad thing.
It was a good exercise in a controlled environment. In my restrictive color world, there were many thoughts about what I wanted to do when I was let out of my confinement.
I was sketching new ideas constantly. What can I create when the door is finally open, and all that sunshine enters the room! Sounds over-the-top, doesn't it? In my mind, the thirty-three pounds of turquoise porcelain had to be used, or it would be money poorly spent and totally wasted. Two 5kg bags would have done well, but that third bag!

I am grateful Dennis and I achieved some great pieces utilizing this Lagoon porcelain. 
We are happy to be coloring our own porcelain once again.
My sketchbook is full of new ideas for bowls, lidded bowls and vases.
Dennis has narrowed his wheel-throwing to plates, shallow bowls and bud vases.

In this process I made some huge discoveries:

No more coffee mugs - with handles, anyway.
No more cat bowls. The sides are too short, and I am feeling the restraint.

MORE colorful pieces, as in BRIGHTER! The journey begins bright, then I talk myself out of it, trying to be some kind of refined potter, BUT BRIGHT colors give rise to a happy heart, and a happy heart means more enthusiasm for new pottery creations.

MORE lidded bowls - Lidded bowls with a split rim LID, so the bowl can remain a bowl.
These, and vases were sketched the most in my sketchbook.
Taller bowls and vases for more surface area to decorate.

MORE hand building (attempts). Creativity and hand building seem to go hand and hand. There is a creative connection between the hand, heart and mind. This includes press molded nerikomi bowls, as for some reason nerikomi technique dissolves the fear of using bright color. Bright color comes naturally (for me) with the nerikomi process. Just keep those cracks away, and it'll be alright.

MORE GLAZES!!! Yes! We need some MORE glazes to stir up our creative visions!

That's it. 
That was a lot to learn from thirty-three pounds of porcelain clay.

There is no awareness of learning when everything is uniform and unvarying.
It is when the mind is challenged to tackle a new procedure, that things sometimes get tough, and need to be thought through in order to complete the task at hand.

It was a good exercise.
It was a productive adventure.