​In last month's article, we explored the many uses for Mason Stains. This month, we're going to get down to the nitty-gritty of how to go about testing those colors to hone in on your target hue.
Protect your lungs! Anytime you are working with dry materials, you should wear a properly rated and well-fitting respirator!

In Slip
We're going to explore this process mainly through an exercise of testing one stain color in various concentrations in a decorative slip. This will provide a basic understanding of the process, which you can then build upon with other testing methods.
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Step 1: Establish Your Base
To begin, we need to identify a base slip formula. There are thousands of formulas out in the world, in books and online, so do some hunting and choose one that has a good amount of community feedback. You will want to find a white or off-white slip that is intended for your firing range. For surface slips, you will need to consider the clay body onto which the slip will be applied. Choose a stoneware slip to apply to a stoneware body, a porcelain slip to apply to a porcelain body, etc. This will help match up the shrinkage rates of the two bodies and help them fit together better, minimizing cracking. Your base recipe should add up to 100, and the colorant (Mason Stain) will be in addition to that. It's a good idea to test a few different slip formulas on your clay body before committing to one and moving forward to the next step. If all else fails, you can save your clay scraps and let them dry out. Pulverize them into a powder to get your dry slip.

Step 2: Choose a Color
It's tempting to go hog-wild and want to test every color at once, but do yourself a favor and just pick one. You can come back and repeat this process again and again. Sticking with one color at a time helps avoid mistakes, especially when you are first starting out.
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Step 3: Prepare Test Batches
Decide how many different increments of the Mason Stain you want to test. I'd recommend at least 5 to give yourself a good amount of data and allow for a wider range. For the sake of this exercise, we'll stick to 5. We need to make up 5 separate mini-batches of our chosen base slip. We don't need much for each test, so 100 grams should be plenty. We will be working at a very small scale, so precision is crucial. Make sure you have an accurate gram scale on hand. Measure out your 5 batches of dry slip in 5 separate containers.

Step 4: Add Mason Stain
Now that you have 5 containers of dry slip prepared, it's time to add the colorant. Decide ahead of time what percentages you are testing and mark your containers and your test tiles. For this exercise, we're going to test the following percentages: 2%, 4%, 6%, 8%, and 10%. This is a reasonable range for most Mason Stains, however there are some that require higher percentages. Carefully measure your stain of choice and add them to your base batches. If you have 100 gram batches, this means you would add 2 grams of stain for 2%, 4 grams of stain for 4%, and so on. If you are mixing larger batches, calculate the appropriate grams for each batch. Carefully stir each batch to combine the dry ingredients.

Step 5: Slaking and Mixing
Add just enough hot water to each batch to completely cover the dry materials. Wait a few minutes for the water to make it's way down through the dry powder, stir gently, then add more water if needed to cover the dry ingredients again. It's best to cover your batches and let them slake for at least a few hours, if not overnight. Slaking is a soaking process that gives the water sufficient time to fully saturate the dry materials. Because of the extremely fine particle sizes, this can take several hours. Using hot water rather than cold water will help expedite this process. Once the batches are properly slaked, you can mix them up. I recommend an electric hand mixer or Jiffy Mixer. You may need to add a bit more water to achieve the correct consistency (heavy cream). Blend until smooth, then sieve with a 60 mesh screen to break up any remaining clumps of dry material. Be diligent to not cross-contaminate your test batches. Clean your mixing utensils and sieve thoroughly between each batch.
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Step 6: Test Tiles
Hopefully you have planned ahead and already have some test tiles made up. If not, don't sweat it, just roll out a slab of your chosen clay body and cut out some small tiles. Make sure to stamp or scratch the percentages into the tile somewhere so you know what you're looking at when it emerges from the kiln. Apply 1-2 coats of each batch to it's matching (and well-marked) test tile, and let dry. Bisque fire, apply clear glaze to half the tile, and re-fire to maturity.

Spring is Here!
With an unusually warm February come and gone, it's time to really start gearing up for spring! The official start of the season is on March 20th, but we're not waiting around to get to work in the studio! After the lull of winter, there are likely to be some chores that need doing to whip your creative space back into workable shape (I know mine is a horrid mess!), so we've made up a little checklist that might be helpful to you!

The spiral usually ends up facing up toward the opening of the bag, so when you just slice a layer off the top, you are taking a whole cross-section of that spiral with you. Not good! The clay particles are aligned differently in the center of this slab than they are at the edge. To avoid starting off on the wrong foot, take your clay pug out of the bag and cut your slice off the side of the pug. This will give you a relatively even section of clay with which to begin preparing your slab.

Now that you have a nice piece of clay, stretch and roll out your slab gradually(don't smash it into shape all at once!), flipping and turning it as you go. This will help align the particles on both sides of the slab evenly.

2. Handle With Care
As you work, try to keep in mind how you are handling the soft slab. Anytime you need to move it, ask yourself: "Do I really need to pick up the slab, or could I use another board to flip/adjust it instead?" Use boards as often as possible to sandwich the slab and flip it, rather than picking it up with your hands. This avoids stretching the slab, which can translate into warping as it dries. Sometimes there's no other way but to just pick it up, though, so when you do, make sure to go slow and splay your fingers to give the slab as much support as possible. Once the slab sets into the leather-hard stages, this stretching risk is all but eliminated. Once the piece is finished, dry it with just as much care! Slow and steady wins the race. Fast, uneven drying encourages warping.

3. Don't Stress, Compress!
While this is more of a general rule of handbuilding, it sort-of applies to warping, so I've decided to mention it. Make sure to compress your edges and attachment seams! The edges of the slab get weaker as you work and move the slab around, so it is important to go back and re-compress those edges to ensure sturdy attachments and strong rims. Clay moves as it dries, and without proper compression on your attachments, those joined slabs will want to warp away from each other, creating cracks.

4. Put a Foot On It
A plate with a foot ring is much less likely to warp than one without. The reason for this is the same as basic construction fundamentals: A broad plane is much stronger with an underlying support brace. The foot ring adds this support and helps stabilize the wide flat span of slab.

5. Don't Wait, Weight!
Weights are a very helpful tool for handbuilders. Most common are small sandbags that can be made at home with old socks and a Ziploc sandwich bag. Fill the sandwich bag with a pound or two of sand, double bag if desired, and place inside an old athletic sock. Tie off the end and voila! Instant high-tech handbuilding tool. These sandbag weights are perfect for plates, applying just enough even pressure to discourage warping as the plate dries. As soon as the plate is soft leather-hard, these weights can be applied. Don't overdo it, though. One or two sandbags usually does the trick. I recommend putting a soft liner between the sandbags and your piece, however, as the texture from the sock can sometimes be left behind. I use a thin piece of foam (like the ones that line Orton cone boxes!) to preserve my plates' surface.

For tiles and other flat pieces, sandwich them between sheets of drywall and let them dry slowly, flipping every day or so. Make sure to wait until the pieces are soft leather-hard before sandwiching, to avoid damaging any decoration on the surface. I also use this technique on larger plates and platters, to help keep the rim level as it dries.
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At the end of the day, as with anything clay-related, there is no shortcut to experience. Some levels of understanding can only be achieved through trial and error. Don't get discouraged! Keep making, keep learning!

Start by choosing an appropriate clay body to make the pot. We recommend using Cinco Rojo, Armadillo's mid-fire red stoneware clay that is very porous when fired to cone 04. You may also use other clay bodies such as stonewares, as long as you only fire them to cone 04. Though traditional ollas are made from terracotta clay, our Longhorn Red loses most of its porosity at cone 04, so we recommend the Cinco Rojo for best results.

Time to make your olla!

Important attributes to include in your design:
- A good-sized well (the belly of the vessel) to hold water. The larger the well, the less frequently you have to fill it!
- A narrow neck. This minimizes the surface footprint of the olla, leaving more room for plants. Just make sure you can still easily fill it up!
- A lid. The style of lid makes little difference, so long as it fits well. If you cannot make a lid, or if the lid you made doesn't work out, you can always use a rubber plug, snug-fitting rock, or other means to seal off the mouth of the jar.

Let dry and fire to cone 04.

Glazing
Traditional ollas are left unglazed, but contemporary makers have found that by glazing just the neck, mouth, and lid, you can significantly reduce the water lost to aspiration/evaporation through these exposed, above-ground sections. The well of the pot that remains beneath the soil must be left unglazed (inside and out!) to allow the water to pass through the pot into the soil.

Apply a low-fire glaze and fire to cone 06, install in your garden, and fill with water. Now you can sit back and enjoy your summer, with less watering and happier plants!

Note: Make sure to check the water level of your olla daily for the first few weeks, until you get a feel for how frequently you need to fill it!
 
Show us your handmade ollas and share tips for other gardening potters on ourFacebook page!

​A BFA graduate of Alfred University, Renee first moved to the Lone Star State back in 2010 to take a glassblowing position at Wimberley Glassworks. A bit of coincidence and a twist of fate eventually landed her squarely at Eye of the Dog Art Center in San Marcos, where she has taken up as an artist-in-residence for the past year. No stranger to dedication, she can often be found hard at work in the studio in the early hours of the morning.

I recently had the opportunity to take a workshop taught by Renee, and obtained a glimpse of the playful-yet-laborious process she puts into every piece. Working with a combination of slips and underglazes atop Armadillo's Cinco Rojo stoneware, each pot is painstakingly layered with blocks of color, incised with tools, and tediously patterned with tiny dots squeezed from an applicator bottle. At the end comes the "big reveal", when the paper and vinyl stencils are carefully removed to unveil the bold, dynamic focal points of the piece. Renee lists architecture and vintage objects alongside Meredith Host and Kristen Kieffer on her well-rounded index of influences. Her passion for design pushes her to make work that is both communicative and accessible.

So far this year, Renee has had her work featured in eight different exhibitions, and she shows no signs of slowing down. With future plans to pursue both teaching and a potential residency program, for now she is focused on making. The next place to find her pots will be in Lubbock on June 11th and 12th for the Wine and Clay festival at the Llano Estacado Winery. This October, she will make her debut at the renowned Texas Clay Festival in Gruene. In the meantime, you can follow her work on Instagram at @staygoldceramics