Demonstration by Pat Kennedy at ‘Bonsai by the Harbour 2012’

This weekend I attended ‘Bonsai by the Harbour 2012’. The venue is beautiful (see the view above). The most interesting demonstration was by Pat Kennedy and below is the summary of how he makes one of his free-form pots.

1 – Making a clay model of the bottom part of the pot. It has to be 12% bigger than the intended size (clay shrinks when dried and fired).
2-3 – Putting a clay wall around the model to contain plaster.
4 – Making the clay surface smooth.
5 – Putting plaster into water. Avoid introducing air bubbles into the mix.
6-7 – Pouring liquid plaster onto the model to create a mold.
8-9 – Removing clay from the mold when plaster hardened.

10 – Plaster mold.
11 – Strips of clay are thorn from a 5 mm thick clay slab.
12-15 – Strips of clay are joined together to form a pot.
16 – Finished pot ready to be dried. Dry pot is bisque-fired and ‘washed’ with iron oxide to highlight the overlays. After that the pot is fired again to stoneware temperature.
17-18 – Finished pot (different from the one made at the demonstration).