Smaller scale pieces focussing on both form and surface

After the breakages and disasters of the last firing, I decided to scale everything back. I still liked the form of the ellipse piece's so decided to construct a couple of smaller versions of that one with a view to adding some surface interest and texture, as well as some of the special effects glaze I had been experimenting with.

Below are images of the two pieces I made both in smooth black clay, one one I have used a lichen glaze, and on the other I have used a coloured porcelain slip I made to add a series of small dots to the surface.

I was really pleased with how the piece looked with the dots, it created a really interesting surface to the piece, however I was disappointed to see how the house stoneware clear had reacted on the clay body. It does add another layer of interest in the way it has clouded, but although I could blag that this was the case it wasn't intentional. I would like to look at how to either add to slip to enable it to have better adhesion, perhaps adding gum arabic/cmc? Or look for a glaze that can remain raised from the surface whilst retaining a shine as I like the idea of matte and shiny together in one piece.

Below are more images of this piece

The piece below is another version of the black ellipse sculpture but this time I have added a lichen glaze to parts of the piece and also used some surface textured that I had developed in some smaller discreet pieces that I had been experimenting with (these have been blogged about separately).

It was so nice and such a relief to have some successful pieces after a less than auspicious start to the new module. I knew that I had become bogged down by focussing on making complete pieces and this been hampered both by scale and by how I had been feeling. I started to really enjoy my clay journey again at this stage.