Rida Laghari Thesis Report

Introduction

Creating a reflection of a garden and reproducing it in a ceramics material for home interior by using visual language of organic form of flowers and pebbles. As they are medium of inspiration to me. I have drawn the actual essence of flowers and have focused on natural occurring shapes of the Pebbles and changed them into functional ceramics containers. 

The universality of flowers and the subtle beauty of colors, magnified with morning dew on petals remind us humans of a far away home that we inhibited longtime ago. Flowers are symbols of comfort, love and care. They are thoughtful gifts which make great decor for any home, in many cultures different colors of flowers signify different moods. With wide variety; colors and fragrances, they have always played a part in most important movements and resistances that have shaped humanity. 
Coming to pebbles, they are small sedimentary rocks that have been eroded over millions of years through different geological processes. Pebble made artifacts are some of the earliest artifacts made by human beings, so pebbles are ingrained in our psyche from Paleolithic times.

Pebbles are used and sorted for variety of decorative purposes both inside and outside homes. With pavements being made out or pebbles in different orientations. Pebbles are sorted with colors, sizes and textures; they are polished if necessary to give a smooth shiny look. Pebbles are also used to design indoor patterns on walls, and as paper weights. Most fascinating fact about pebbles is they are not only limited to earth, pebbles are also found on planets with solid surfaces all throughout solar system.

Stone pebbles are common, functional, stress-free and highly decorative material that displays beautiful natural colors and adds texture to modern interior design and backyard design. An example of pebble used for design purposes for interior design is Japanese gardens. Japanese garden design requires pebbles to create an ordered, timeless, peaceful and peaceful appearance. Japanese garden design blends green plants, stones, stone pebbles, sand and water, combining these natural materials in beautiful combinations and making a wonderful accent for your backyard landscapes.

Design Statement:

Ceramics Containers are made using elements by garden such as flowers and rocks.

 Flowers are delicate and beautiful and used to give a blossoming look to my designs and to give a feeling of calmness and peace. Flowers have a long-term positive effect on moods and make intimate connections. People feel less depressed, anxious and agitated after seeing flowers, and demonstrated a higher sense of enjoyment and life satisfaction. Flowers bring about positive emotional feelings in those who enter a room. They make the space more welcoming and create a sharing atmosphere.

  Stones are used as my inspiration for my pieces to give an earthy and rustic look.

 

 

 

 

Background

Ceramics Containers:

Ceramics containers were not manufactured until A.D. 1, as much as fifteen hundred years after the appearance of the first cultigens and eight hundred years after the appearance of the first ceramic figurines. 

Pottery is generally considered to be containers made from clay. "Pot" is a term used for any number of container forms

In industrialized countries, modern pottery can be classified in two ways. There is commercial pottery or ceramics which are produced in factories, and there is studio pottery which is produced by individual craftsmen. You may also hear of "art pottery," which may be either produced commercially or by an individual craftsman.

Ceramics is one of the most ancient industries going back thousands of years. Once humans discovered that clay could be found in abundance and formed into objects by first mixing with water and then firing, a key industry was born.

Flower Making:

Handmade flowers were produced at Meissen in Germany from the early eighteenth century. In 1748 individual flowers accounted for five sixes of the production at the Serves Factory. They were either mounted on wire stems or applied directly to the surface of vases. The material they use to make flowers was porcelain.

 Flowers are a well known form of decoration on Coal port China. They were used to decorate a range of Coal port china called Coalbrookdale Ware. The flowers were made completely by hand. At the Coal port China Works, this skilled task was usually performed by women. They could each make a china rose in about thirty seconds. The flower makers required only simple tools. They would use a comb made from leather, wood or bone to make indentations in the clay and a scalpel for cutting. The most skilled flower makers had a comb made of bone as a sign of their higher status. Flower makers today use every day objects such as tea strainers as tools. They rub cooking oil into their hands to prevent the clay sticking.

 

 

Case Study

·      Echo of Nature by Yumiko Goto

https://mymodernmet.com/yumiko-goto-nature-ceramics/

·      Salt and Pepper  Stone Shakers

 

http://www.raindropsboutique.com/Ceramic-functional-pottery2.html

 

 

·      Jennifer Joh

 

Instagram at @jstudioclay

 

 Material information

·     Plaster:

Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for molding and casting decorative elements. Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for molding and casting decorative elements. Plaster can be relatively easily worked with metal tools or even sandpaper, and can be molded, either on site or to make pre-formed sections in advance, which are put in place with adhesive. Plaster is not a strong material; it is suitable for finishing, rather than load-bearing, and when thickly applied for decoration may require a hidden supporting framework.

Plaster of Paris, quick-setting gypsum plaster consisting of a fine white powder (calcium sulfate hemihydrates), which hardens when moistened and allowed to dry. Known since ancient times, plaster of Paris is so called because of its preparation from the abundant gypsum found near Paris. Plaster of Paris does not generally shrink or crack when dry, making it an excellent medium for casting molds. It is commonly used to precast and hold parts of ornamental plasterwork placed on ceilings and cornices.

 

 

 

 

·     Stoneware Clay:

 

Stoneware is strong, hard and nonporous. It does not absorb its contents. Stoneware requires higher firing temperatures (1100°C and 1300°C). The high temperature improves the stoneware’s durability.

Stoneware clays are plastic and are often grey when moist. Their fired colors range from light grey and buff to medium grey and brown. Fired colors are greatly affected by the type of firing.

 Many stoneware pieces from years past were household items like bowls, jugs, jars, crocks and other containers that stored water, oils, food and more.

·     Paper Clay :

Paper clay sometimes referred to as fiber clay. Clay body to which processed cellulose fiber paper being the most common has been added. Earthenware, terra cotta, stoneware, porcelain and bone china clay bodies can be made into paper clay. The more fiber added to the clay body, the stronger the unfired dry paper clay, but the weaker the fired body. The less fiber added to the clay body, the weaker the unfired dry paper clay, but the stronger the fired body.Thinner and taller work can be built with partially dry or completely dry paper clay. Re-wetting paper clay is faster with paper clay than pure clay, as the paper fibers pull water more quickly into the clay body.

 

·     Stains :

Ceramic stains are a mixture of ceramic oxides and coloring metal oxides that are melted in kilns, quenched, ground to specific mesh size some are acid washed, and colored with organic dyes to simulate the fired color. Essentially they are fritted colorants. They are made and manufactured for several reasons: to provide a consistent and stable form of colorant that doesn’t dissolve in the glaze melt as easily as coloring metal oxides.

Stains are great if you have highly decorative work to fire and they can be fired at a range of different temperatures. There are several factors you should consider when picking your stain including glaze chemistry and working out how the glaze will react with the clay body, exact color which is easy to see with a ceramic stain, and also the temperature in which you will be firing your stain at. Your stain can also have varying densities, depending on how many layers of color you wish to apply.

·     High Temperature Transparent Glaze:

A fully transparent glaze is simply one that does not have opacity. But there are degrees of transparency. For example, if a glaze is matte it will show the color of underlying body and decoration, but these will be muted so it is actually translucent. Completely transparent glazes look like a glass container or a mirror, perfectly clear and glassy smooth. Glazes that you might have always taken to be transparent may appear much less so when compared side-by-side with a true brilliant glossy clear. When a transparent is intended as a base one must consider the types of visual effects desired. Ceramic glaze is an impervious layer or coating of a vitreous substance which has been fused to a ceramic body through firing. Glaze can serve to color, decorate or waterproof an item. Most commonly, glazes in aqueous suspension of various powdered minerals and metal oxides are applied by dipping pieces directly into the glaze. Other techniques include pouring the glaze over the piece, spraying it onto the piece with an airbrush or similar tool, or applying it directly with a brush or other tool.

 

To prevent the glazed article from sticking to the kiln during firing, either a small part of the item is left unglazed, or it's supported on small refractory supports such as kiln spurs and Stilts that are removed and discarded after the firing. Small marks left by these spurs are sometimes visible on finished ware.

 

Design process

·     Research on flowers and collect photos of rare and common flowers 

     

·      Tracing on butter paper

  

 

 

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·      Carving on wax :

 

                               

·      Flower carving on clay

·      Carving on plaster: 

  

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

·      Moulding and casting method :

     

 

 

 

·      Hand construction of flowers in terracotta:

   

  

     

 

 

·      Hand construction in stoneware :

 

 

               

·      Ideation for containers :

    

 

 

 

·      Pebbles used as containers

  

 

·      Moulding and Casting:

  

 

  

              

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

·      Slip Casting:

  

 

  

 

                                     

 

·      Final Making:

 

 

  

·      Bisk firing:

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

·      Coloring 

  

 

 

 

·      Final:

 

 

Fabrication Method 

·      Molding Casting:

Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process. Casting materials are usually after mixing two or more components together; examples are plaster and clay. Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be otherwise difficult or uneconomical to make by other methods,

Casting is a 7,000-year-old process. The oldest surviving casting is a copper frog from 3200 BC.

 Casting process simulation uses numerical methods to calculate cast component quality considering mold filling, solidification and cooling, and provides a quantitative prediction of casting mechanical properties, thermal stresses and distortion. Simulation accurately describes a cast component's quality up-front before production starts. The casting rigging can be designed with respect to the required component properties. This has benefits beyond a reduction in pre-production sampling, as the precise layout of the complete casting system.

·      Slip casting:

Slip casting or slip casting is a ceramic forming technique for the mass-production of pottery and other ceramics, especially for shapes not easily made on a wheel. Slipcast ware should not be confused with slipware, which is pottery formed by any technique that is decorated using slip. In slip casting, a liquid clay body slip is poured into plaster moulds and allowed to form a layer, the cast, on the inside walls of the mould.

 

·      Slab Method:

The slab building technique involves rolling out clay to an even thickness - usually 1 cm - then cutting shapes, folding, bending, manipulating and joining together to form a finished object.

Place two strips of wood on canvas a little further apart than the width of the finished slabs. Use a pointed tool to trim the slab of clay to desired size. You may make paper patterns to follow if a form that has a number of sides is desired. Rub a wet finger over the edges to be joined and score with a tool. Roll out a thin coil of sticky clay and place it along one edge. Press the two edges together. As the clay dries, it shrinks away from the form but retains the shape of the form.

·      Hand construction:

Hand building is an ancient pottery-making technique that involves creating forms without a pottery wheel, using the hands, fingers, and simple tools. 

·      Glaze: 

 

·      Stains 40%

·      CMC in liquid form 20%

·      China Clay10%

·      Water 100g 

 

·      High Temperature Transparent Glaze:

 

·      Frit 

·      CMC gum 

·       

Project Cost 

·      Plaster = 500

·      Slip=150

·      Bisk firing=700

·      Glazing=150

·      Final firing=700

·      Labor=500

·      Transport=2700

·      Packaging=1000

·      Design charges=2100

·      Pebbles=1500

·      Total =10000

 

How can a reflection of my garden be reproducing in ceramics for my home interior?

The reflection of a garden can be reproducing in ceramics for a home interior by using visual language of organic form of flowers and rocks. Flower gives a feeling of comfort, love and care and pebbles give ordered , timeless and peaceful appearance .