moldspace

[moldspace]

a little inquisitive skybeast

[moldspace]

Hi! I do ceramics myself and i've hit a roadblock in progress, i like making figures but i am struggling with glazing, may i ask the process in how you make your colors so vibrant? All the underglaze i see and find is very very dull, and my transparent glaze leaves a white frost on my figures

I use a variety of different underglazes from Mayco, Amaco and Coyote (my personal favorite) and Amaco's Mixing Clear from their Celadon line as my topcoat. Underglazes on their own will be duller and very matte without a clear glaze on top, but I too have had trouble with my transparent glazes (still happens now even!) and there are a lot of different things that could be causing your transparent gaze to look milky:

The glaze itself could be too thick, causing it to apply too thickly.

You may be applying it too heavily (a long dip if dipping, too many coats if brushing). Personally I apply transparent glaze VERY lightly over my underglazed pieces and it will get milky if I'm not careful.

Make sure you're using a zinc-free clear. I really like Amaco's Mixing Clear, but you may want to shop around and try a few before finding one that works for you.

Make sure your kiln is hitting the correct temperature for the clear glaze. All the glazes I use are for cone 5-6, but for a while my kiln was under firing significantly and I'm pretty sure it worsened some of the milkiness problems I was having with my transparent glazes.

And sometimes different clay bodies will make glazes behave differently, but with clear glaze the culprit is almost always thickness!

Speaking of firing temperatures: the products I use and recommend are all for mid fire. I can't speak to any high fire products since I don't do high fire. But if you're doing low fire I believe you can use a lot of the underglazes I listed here, you'll just need to find a low fire transparent coat. For low fire there are also products like Stroke and Coat which function like a mixture between a glaze and an underglaze that may get you the effect you're looking for.

Best of luck! Ceramics is complicated, haha.

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your art makes me feel really safe and comfortable. thank you for sharing it.

i'm so glad it can evoke that feeling! <3

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it's been a while since I've made just a plain old sphinx - this is one with a very fun color palette

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a recent painting

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the people have spoken and the people want a zundle* so here it is! pros of zundle: more zines for less money (20% off in fact!), shipping prices are Normal (bigcartel is notoriously** bad at calculating shipping for large orders of individual things -_-), and of course the power of having the full moldspace canon at your fingertips. cons of zundle: NONE! GO BUY ZINES!

*lovely phrasing courtesy of @jbbartram-illu

**notorious to me. not sure if anyone else complains about/has found a solution for this but its a constant frustration of mine

hi! I was wondering how you make your zines? (like if you use your own printer yk?)

also would you ever do a zine bundle if someone wanted all of your zines?

yes, i print them myself on a regular home printer and bind them by hand!

i hadn't thought of it but a zine bundle would be a good idea! would anyone else be interested in such a thing?

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hey, all! new year, big news! i'm moving to california! to go to college! wow!

sadly this means i'll be away from my kiln and clay for four months :( that said, i have a backlog of art to post so you'll still get to see some of the stuff i've been working on over the fall and winter soon. BUT, that does mean no new shop updates for a little bit! you'll still be able to grab zines, pins, and stickers from my shop, though, because my wonderful sibling will be running it while i'm away. i'll also probably do some more crochet and polymer clay and plain old drawing while i'm kilnless, so hopefully you'll still get to see some fresh new temperate rainforest inspired stuff! i'm super excited for this new chapter, even if it means i've got to put art on the backburner for a little bit, and i hope y'all will stick around while i'm off gallivanting around in the redwoods. i'll be sure to post lots of banana slug pictures!!!

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hi! I was wondering how you make your zines? (like if you use your own printer yk?)

also would you ever do a zine bundle if someone wanted all of your zines?

yes, i print them myself on a regular home printer and bind them by hand!

i hadn't thought of it but a zine bundle would be a good idea! would anyone else be interested in such a thing?

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ok well since everyone is posting their @jbbartram-illu mosslings i just have to share mine! hanging out with another woodsbeast (he's not the step dad... he's the dad who stepped up 😤) and other sundry creatures including some wonderful @sleepnoises fellows!!!

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now that it's been christmas gifted i can share this dandelion mug! my first wheel-thrown mug!! it turned out pretty nice if i do say so myself :^)

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wauugh what a sweet story! im so delighted the stickers are making their way out into the world and bringing some happiness!!

i was at a restaurant last week, watching the political ads on the TV between sports games. one from the trump campaign ended with the slogan “kamala is for they/them. trump is for you”. it was vilely clever - and it made a clear statement about who was the enemy, the other, the unwelcome, in trump’s great america. i thought about how the right had gone all-in on transphobia this election season, and i hoped it was a gamble that would cost them.

this week has been a gut punch, and i’ve been feeling a lot of things - rage, fear, grief, and subspecies of those emotions. what i kept coming back to, though, as i digested these feelings, were the people i love. my queer friends. the trans kids in my community. the people who, already, are losing their rights to bodily autonomy, state-by-state. the way that i’ve had to start looking at our country as a fucked up patchwork of safe and not-safe. the way that access to medical care, increasingly, changes depending on which side of an arbitrary border you’re on. i’m also realizing the ignorance and privilege it is to only think of our country this way, now. america has always been about picking and choosing who deserves rights, who we consider a person. but, despite the deep-seated flaws of this country, i live in it. so do so many people i love. and that’s what I keep coming back to: the people i love, and my desire to protect them. at the very center of all the rage and hurt and anxiety and sorrow i’m feeling, is a deep, perilous love. i am holding onto that love. i hope you are, too.

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wahoo yippee!!

Just recieved a package from @moldspace !!

Very happy, thank you! 🥰

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okay this is embarrassingly overdue because i think i made polls asking about what pin designs to make in, like, the summer and after some manufacturing delays and getting really busy i forgot to get these up until i looked at the calendar and realized it was DECEMBER and these would make perfect stocking stuffers but uh yeah turns out i decided to get ALL OF THE DESIGNS and also theyre up in the shop now and will be shipping in time for christmas!!!

and also they turned out SO GOOD!! they're so hard to photograph because they're all very shiny metal but it really makes the designs pop and they're just so pretty i'm delighted with how they turned out!

[moldspace]

okay this is embarrassingly overdue because i think i made polls asking about what pin designs to make in, like, the summer and after some manufacturing delays and getting really busy i forgot to get these up until i looked at the calendar and realized it was DECEMBER and these would make perfect stocking stuffers but uh yeah turns out i decided to get ALL OF THE DESIGNS and also theyre up in the shop now and will be shipping in time for christmas!!!

and also they turned out SO GOOD!! they're so hard to photograph because they're all very shiny metal but it really makes the designs pop and they're just so pretty i'm delighted with how they turned out!

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when i was brainstorming this fundraiser my absolute most optimistic, pie-in-the-sky dream was to break a thousand dollars raised. i thought probably i'd manage to raise five or six hundred bucks. but i just donated almost TWO THOUSAND dollars to trans continental pipeline!!! i honestly can't believe it! thank you ALL for the sticker purchases, likes, and reblogs - this is all YOU GUYS!!! i know the future is uncertain and scary, but hopefully we've just helped to make it a little less scary and a little less difficult for someone (or many someones) who need the help that TCP offers.

there's also still time to buy a sticker if you want to help break that $2k mark!! i'll still be donating all money made off the remaining sticker stock to TCP as they sell <3

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when i was brainstorming this fundraiser my absolute most optimistic, pie-in-the-sky dream was to break a thousand dollars raised. i thought probably i'd manage to raise five or six hundred bucks. but i just donated almost TWO THOUSAND dollars to trans continental pipeline!!! i honestly can't believe it! thank you ALL for the sticker purchases, likes, and reblogs - this is all YOU GUYS!!! i know the future is uncertain and scary, but hopefully we've just helped to make it a little less scary and a little less difficult for someone (or many someones) who need the help that TCP offers.

there's also still time to buy a sticker if you want to help break that $2k mark!! i'll still be donating all money made off the remaining sticker stock to TCP as they sell <3

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okay i have gotten (almost) everyone's trans charity sticker orders shipped today but my website did just have a bit of a hiccup in which i believe it may have sent 2 (or more!) duplicate emails about your orders being shipped. if it did this to you i am so sorry, for some reason bigcartel absolutely had an issue with marking a lot of packages shipped at once without tracking. i promise everything got shipped normal style.

(and if your sticker order doesn't show up in the next couple of weeks please do reach out because i am shipping these regular letter mail to keep shipping costs low but it does mean they aren't tracked and i will replace any orders that get lost in the mail vortex)