Still working with the terracotta slip, I managed to have some success with the shapes staying upright longer. I was working with a bigger nozzle, which meant I had to make the shapes bigger to see the details I wanted. This also meant that the clay needed to be stiffer, to support the weight of the larger pieces, which unfortunately my slip proved to be too thin yet again. I do like the way most of the pieces distorted, with the coils draping over the sides.
The draping of the coils is something that I really enjoy, and I attempted on a few pieces to manually alter the piece as it was printing, to achieve the drape effect purposefully instead of accidentally. Ultimately though, the pieces that "failed" printing had much more visual appeal than the manually altered ones.
I have decided to take a small break from the printing to refocus on coil building. I think this will help to bring the two sides of my project together, and get my hands back in practice with making again. I have also had a very interesting test come out with the Egyptian paste. I took a small piece and fired it to 1140 C, and it created a molten looking surface.
This test has sparked the flame of experimentation, and I want to try adding both dried pieces and wet slip of the Egyptian paste to my handbuilt terracotta pieces to see what it will do within the walls of a piece. I have two coiled pieces that I attached base to base with the faience and I am very excited to see what happens in the kiln.
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