Over the weekend I had the idea of creating thinner ceramic surfaces by pouring a slip onto a plaster slab. Again I thought that by using a paper clay slip then the paper fibres within the body would allow me to produce a thinner sheet by holding the clay particles together. 

I had a few goes at pouring the slip, however found it extremely difficult to then remove the clay from the plaster without completely destroying the form of the rectangles. Although my negotiated project is about Wabu Sabi and accepting failure, I think there is a limit to how far I can push that within my ceramic pieces just looking terrible. 

Over the past few days I have spent a lot of time in the ceramics studio practicing making these sheets of “A4” ceramics. I have got the technique down pretty well to make a very thin sheet now, and have almost managed to perfect removing the sheets without tearing the edges. However I actually prefer some of the sheets with ripped and frayed edges.

As shown in the pictures I have also added a number of different patterns and techniques onto the sheets, including some small amounts of oxides, some etching, stained slips and cut away sections of the sheet.

I will fire all of these tomorrow and then on Friday I will be able to collect them and discuss the physical qualities of them with Mike Stubbs. 

Today I was also able to collect my ceramic sheets out of the kiln, and I am extremely happy with the results. I was surprised to see that all of the sheets came out in one piece, even the most fragile and torn ones came out okay.

I like the sleeker and smoother sheets that Imanaged to produce than the more irregular ones,and think that I prefer the plain white surface with sections removed or marks scorn into the surface rather than those coloured with slips or oxides. 

I will show these to Mike Stubbs when possible

Today while thinking about how to make a sheet of ceramics I also thought about coating a sheet of something already existing in some ceramic slip and firing it. I thought that paper might be too thin to use and so have coated two sheets of cardboard.

I am not holding out much hope for this technique but thought I may as well try it out.

This is the pieces of cardboard that I coated in slip, as expected they have come out pretty poorly and I won’t be pursuing this idea any further.