Embedded Files
These photos are from before I touched it up, so keep in mind this is a photo of the box unfinished.
Stoneware, 3x3x3.5
Purpose:: Use a 3” x 3” post-it as a template to create a multiple-sided, lidded box out of slabs. Tie together the different sides and lid of the box with connected shapes/concepts.
Reflection:
I designed my box with the theme of the pond that my family goes camping at every year. For the sides that wrap around the box I altered them with water etching. We water etched by cutting out a shape from tape and pasting it onto the surface. We then used a damp sponge and carefully but firmly eroded an even layer of clay around the cutout. Because the tape was covering the clay, the clay under the tape isn’t eroded. This lets you mirror any shape that you can get on a piece of tape. I decorated the four sides with a cutout of the pond, a moose, a fish, and an outline of the mountain range that we usually see from the pond. My handle was a lilypad because the pond that we go to is full of them. I tried to choose a color for the top that looked like sandy gravel that is in the pond but it came out more splotchy than I intended.
I like the way my box turned out but I also think I have a lot to improve on. The reason I altered the sides with water etching is because of how crisp the shape looks versus carving or pasting and I feel like the water etching that I did before firing was lost when I glazed the box because I didn’t glaze it carefully enough. It doesn’t look crisp at all but I still think it looks okay. If I were to make another slab box, I would use another method which involved putting on underglaze around a cutout before firing because I think it could retain the crisp lines better. I wouldn’t change my theme, staying with the moose, pond, fish, mountains, and lily pad. I would change the color for the top of the box to a sky blue or forest green. I would also change the green background for the pond and moose because I think it is very streaky. I like my inside, which I painted purple, because I think it is a nice contrast to the more natural colors on the outside and is very simple.
Planning for design and glaze:
Additional research:
If I were to make another slab box I would like to make a customized bottom. The person who made the box on the left made it by cutting out the walls with the half-circle bottom and applying a square bottom above the top of the half-circle. The person who made it on the right made a normal box and then added four small squares to the bottom corners. This could be interesting to add because it would be another element to design like the handle. If If I had to add a bottom to the slab box I made I would add small grey clay ovals that look like rocks because the shore of the pond that my family camps at every year has a lot of rocks.
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