You've heard us mention using our pugmill. You've even seen pictures of us using our pugmill. But what exactly is a pugmill?
A pugmill is essentially a machine that mixes materials with a liquid. In pottery, it can be used with clay to achieve the consistency that you are looking for. It is helpful because it means that leftover clay need not be thrown away, but just stored for later use. When stored for any period of time, the clay will start to dry out. Thus, a pugmill is used to mix the dried out clay with water to make the clay soft and workable again.In our pottery studio, we always have a huge pile of clay leftover from our projects, whether from pressing, building large bowls, or working on the wheel. So some days become "pugging days". Pugging clay doesn't take long, but we allow each batch about 15 minutes to churn. You wouldn't think it, but the pugmill can hold 4-5 bags of clay!
Then depending on how dry the clay is, we'll add several cups of water.
Next, we close the top, flip the lever to "mix", and let it do its thing!
Finally, after we've allowed ample time for mixing and churning, we flip the lever to "extrude" and out comes the newly softened clay!
If the clay is soft enough, it is ready to be used again. If not, it can be put back through a pugmill cycle.
The ornaments were fired in the electric kiln, as seen above.
In a bisque firing (or the first firing), the pieces can be stacked on top of each other.
The electric kiln was stacked full of shelves like this with piles and piles of ornaments.
If ornaments aren't given enough time to dry before firing,they will break in the kiln, as seen here.
Here, Lois is unloading the kiln by removing the shelves.They are very heavy!
Finally, the bottom of the kiln and the last of the ornaments to unload.
The ornaments are stacked according to their shape and put into boxes.They are now ready to paint!
First, the clay is rolled into large slabs.
Kathy and Lois have decided on a large variety of shapes!For that, they use cookie cutters.
The cookie cutters are placed on the slab of clay.They try to fit in as many as possible.
Here, Lois and Kathy are using straws to poke holes in each ornament.
Each ornament is then removed from the cookie cutter and placed on a tray.
Next, they are all stamped with the Jean Elton logo.
The ornaments need to remain flat until they are completely dry.Believe it or not, this is only a small fraction that have been made!
My mother-in-law is a painter and we have some of her beautiful watercolor paintings around our house. She painted a lot of flowers, but most of her work was very abstract. Before I started hand-painting our dishes, I would look at her work and wonder if I could translate some of that beauty onto our pottery. In the beginning, I would try to draw a perfect flower, but soon I realized that perfection wasn't as interesting as different shapes and designs. Instead, I started drawing flowers, not worrying whether or not they were perfect, and then complement them with abstract shapes that I would later paint in all different colors. That is how the latest Jean Elton designs were born. I use water color glazes to achieve the bright and varied colors that I saw in my mother-in-law's paintings. And then I just draw and see where the shapes and colors take me.