Gary's Third Pottery Blog

When the going gets tough, dragons gonna get going....

Gary's third pottery blog

WRITE TO ME! garyrith@yahoo.com Come see me! Open studio HERE! November 25-26 (11-4 each day); Aurora Art and Design, daily until 12/24; Cooperstown Art Assoc. daily until 12/24; Ellis Hollow Community Fair, 12/10; December 10, Little Red Wagon at the Space at Greenstar. All material on this blog unless stated otherwise is copyright Gary Edward Rith 2016

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

BIG enough

Potters realize:  things shrink!  Clay dries and goes through 2 firings and shrinks.  I don't think about it much, but, for example, a ten inch tall vase when made could lose 15 percent of its size, ending up at 8 1/2 inches tall in the end!

Who cares about that, right?  You just get used to it, or in my case, never really notice it. UNTIL you have the need for something specific:  I told you I needed a tall jar to put open bags of spaghetti into.  As it is now, I reach up to the top shelf and spill half open bags all over....
I don't know how tall spaghetti is, but I made a couple of jars with an empty bag in hand.

I made 2.  The first one was way big enough, in the making, and the 2nd a LOT bigger.
They both shrank dramatically..but the first works wonderfully, with at least 1/2 inch to spare :)

In other news, we made these veggie corn fritters (recipe click here).  They are beautiful and tasty, but a little crumbly to make.  I found it in a magazine...4 years ago the same magazine had the same recipe BUT so different! A much easier recipe to prepare, but fewer veggies (click here).
SO, the thing to do, in my opinion, is combine the best of BOTH recipes somehow, next time....

5 comments:

Barbara Rogers said...

Awesome jars. Is that a Felix the pirate shirt?

Anonymous said...

I'd shrink too, if you baked all the moisture out of me;) But kidding aside, it must be tough to measure things properly when you have to account for shrinkage before you begin a project.

smalltownme said...

The newer recipe looks much more appetizing with all the extra veg!

Karen (formerly kcinnova) said...

I remember the shrinkage problem when you were making our plates (which were doubly difficult because they were NOT your favorite thing to make in the first place). Glad your new noodle jars worked out!

Lori Buff said...

We hear this all the time with new students who are not as used to the shrinkage as you are. They are always a bit surprised at how small their first pots become.

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I am a full-time studio potter, sculptor, and dog walker, married to superhawt Missus Tastycake.