Tag: shaving brush

bowls, charity, pottery, shaving, shaving brush

March firing

Almost all goes for charity.

Mugs

Some mugs are made from self composed clay in transparent and angobe.

Some others are cracked with sodium siliacate and then decorated with oxides (iron or cupper) and then glazed in transparent.

And regular mugs with mixed glazes.

Lathering sets and bowls

Sets of lathering bowls of different type plus brush handles or mugs.

Double-wall lathering set

Cofee cups

Trials for beads

Trial to achieve the crocodile skin effect with angobe. Failded. The bowl cracked and the angobe has been overfired. However the handle and the bottle are fully ok.

John’s Beads and John’s Beads 2, both failed to achieve the expected effects of drops or crockodile skin.

Paddled wase

My fist paddled piece .

by Pawel
pottery, shaving

Japan makes the difference

Europeans often get fascinated by Japanese culture, tradition and spiritual approach to almost everything. My fascinations went by after getting deeper and deeper in one of the martial arts discipline, knowing the people and the underlining believes.

Now, it comes back in context of craftship – in ceramics and smith works. Ferrytales about Anagama firing and sword’s making are longs stories each, worth separate post if not portals.

For the moment take a look a the following two specific razors. Both designed Ryūichi Saitō. Read more on him and the 3 “smiling” models designed by him. At first glamps, those who are in the subject of traditional wet shaving, can see how deep is the “smile”. It may make sense. For experimentation with it, please wait a bit until they are renovated. I plan to record a sessions of honing it and using them.

Here is what came to me recently from Japan. No 1 and No 3, only 2 is missiong to the collection. Not bad conditions, nevertheless they deserve some refreshment if not renovation.

And here is an attempt to match other elements of the shaving gear set to the No 3. The bell and the brush handle made with porcelain mixed in the body with Ochra terracolor pigment, fired at 1250°C.

 

by Pawel
charity, pottery

Leading up to Christmas

Before saying Marry Christmas, we are still in the advent period. It is high time we emptied pockets and got rid of money for charity.

Some of the recent pieces have been given out for charity auctions on various shaving portals (see the links at the bottom). Here is the next guy to be posted for charity. Porcelain white-blue agateware with single trace of red.

All funds go directly to the charity organization Mozesz (which is formally recognized under Polish legal regulations and registered accordingly).

black
round
cooper

mugs
tower
w-b-r


by Pawel
shaving, shaving brush

Greenish stoneware

This handle was intended to pretend the style of old potters who were developing glazes themselves from iron, cooper and lead oxides by firing them and mixing with clay washes plus some ash. Here is just commercial glaze. I did not dare to apply ash on such a small guy.

by Pawel
pottery

Crash test

Nowadays we are all surrounded by low cost, poor quality, usual things. I would dare to say, that situation is even worse than a century ago when, on average, people could afford less.  Less did not necessarily mean worse.

But to the point…. we tent to think that all ceramics, whether clay or porcelain is delicate and cracks on every occasion. We don’t know that all that reservations are deepened by use of low cost materials and low firing (which is also a cost factor).

Here is a fall test of shaving brash handle to a concrete floor. Some emotions, from horror to joy.

by Pawel
pottery, shaving

My first nerikomi

This is my first nerikomi. Costs a lot of efforts but the results pay off. Personally I would prefer to keep it unglazed or satin finish. Here is the version with glossy transparent glaze. There are … if I remember well… 6 colors: red, ochra, blue, violet, black and white of course.

To keep the handle light, there is an empty compartment inside.  Fired at 1250C.

by Pawel
pottery, shaving

First agateware

first mini set in agateware

In fact this is my first approach to agateware. The handle and outside of the mug is not glazed at all while internal part of the mug is in glossy transparent. I use the brush everyday as my primary shaving choice. I like the smooth pearl survace of the handle.

More parts will come. I work on a complete set composed of brush, mug, AS bottle, scull and ….razor with that type of scales.

Porcelain with blue pigment fired at 1265 C