I have just returned from 2 weeks traveling for my day job as a furniture designer and I have been anxious to get back into the ceramic studio. A friend asked me about creating a series of square plates for him and I started thinking about how to proceed. I've started with a plaster mold and a rolled out a slab about 3/16 of an inch thick. I drape the slab over the mold and trim. My challenge with square plates in the past is that I haven't perfected a good foot ring solution. Not easy to turn a round ring on a square shape...or is it? "Why haven't I thought of this before!" I took my square mold and drilled the bottom with two holes to align with my wheel bat plugs. I now can turn a square plate on the wheel and it's centered. You can see the results in the image above. I extruded a round profile of clay and added it to the bottom of the plate for a perfectly round foot ring.
I have also been unhappy with my normal signiture mark on the bottom of my pieces thinking it is not very finished looking. I recently started marking my pieces with a rubber stamp "N*S". Thoughts on this look? In the past I just took a tool and ingraved a star with my initials and date.
I am also happy to report that I now have enough greenware produced to load the kiln this weekend. I can't wait to start glazing.
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