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OOOPS! What to Do With a Mistake – Part 1 Greenware:
What can you do when casting goes wrong?
It doesn’t matter how much experience you have with ceramics, you are bound to have mistakes. Whether it be casting your rmolds, bisque or finished pieces, you can often turn those disasters into something useful. This is first of a series of articles that will give you options for your ooopsies other than the trash barrel Sometimes pieces collapse, or split with stress cracks during the casting process. No problem if you have a reclaimer, just toss the ware back into the recycling vat. But if you want to get really creative, try this: 1. An object with wings – Break off the wings, fire and save them as teaching aids for you or students to practice colors and techniques. These are great for testing antiquing colors, floating colors, dry brushing, corner load shading, etc. You do not have to clean the item unless you want because these are just training aids. 2. Figurines – break off the heads, fire and save them for practice in painting eyes and faces. All sizes are good, but the larger ones are better for beginners to use. 3. Plain, smooth pieces like plates or bases – create a color wheel using the greenware for underglazes and/or fire to bisque to use stains or glazes. Color wheels are great to have handy, especially for colors you mix yourself. They can also be used to record what colors were used on a specific project. 4. A vase – If the item is still soft, intentionally make a ragged tear around the rim and stretch the mouth out of shape, creating a one of a kind piece of art. If it’s leather hard, use a knife to cut scallops or designs around the lip or part way down the sides. You can also fret some kind of design on the sides or cut out some of the pattern if it is a detailed vase. These are great if you paint one color inside and a contrasting color on the exterior. 5. Plain flat pieces of greenware – cut into squares of assorted sizes to use as color chips or mosaic tiles. You can also cut into other shapes. Smooth the edges before firing. These can be sold in bags as bisque for artists looking to make their own mosaic tiles. Works best with wet greenware, but a small saw will cut dry ware. Consider putting a small hole near one edge of 1-2” squares so that they can be strung together as color samplers. Color samplers are great for giving to potential businesses such as interior designers and florists who may want to order customized work. 6. Assorted broken WET greenware – Create an unusual piece of modern art. Place some of the select pieces in a plastic bag to keep them wet. Cast a nice plain vase or box. When the item is leather hard, arrange the broken pieces as a collage around the vase or on top of the box lid, attaching them with slip. You might have so much fun with this, that you will break things on purpose. 7. Assorted greenware – take some of the broken pieces and pound them into small coarse crumbs. Sift out the dust. Place them in a piece of bisque and fire them. Mix the bisque crumbs with stains or underglazes to create textured colors. These crumbs can also be used as a grog for sculpting clay.
ABOVE ALL – Let your creativity run wild. You are only limited by your imagination.