Welcome to All in One Bonsa

Bitten by the Bug


Welcome to All in One Bonsai...a blog that aims to remind me of what I have forgotten. Over the years I have been finding out as much as I can about the art of bonsai. I hope the information in this blog will shed some light to the beginning bonsai enthusiast out there.


I saw some bonsai trees at a corner market one night in Taipei and asked the guy if he was willing to teach me how to create these miniature trees. He directed me to a night school where all the instruction was in Chinese. My Chinese ability is very ordinary at the least so although I was learning bits and pieces, I really wasn't getting all I wanted from the course. The best parts were when the teacher would start pruning a beautiful tree or when he showed us how to repot a bonsai. The mystery was still out there but my interest wasn't waning, if anything it fueled my motivation to find out more. And so I did.


Let the adventure begin...


Recently I have discovered the joy of pottery. Bonsai and pottery are close friends so it was only a matter of time before I was introduced to her. Welcome to All in One Bonsai...and pottery.


Feel free to visit my site where you can purchase some of my handmade pottery. Quite a few pieces have been wood fired as it is the prefered method here in Taiwan:


Esty Shop: AllinoneCeramics




Wednesday 29 October 2014

And on and on it goes...

Fire, Gas, Electric

I have been pottering around over the last few months making this and that.  I'm finding that I am putting off more and more things I should be doing in my real job so I can spend time squeezing clay.

  I have the feeling that because my current job has been a little stressful lately, when I get to play around with clay it becomes a welcome release.  I wonder if I didn't have a busy time at work, would I enjoy the clay as much?  My guess is probably not.  Bitter sweet comes to mind.  Sweet, sweet? 
                                                                          
Not as yet.

I had the chance to wood fire, gas fire and use the standard electric kiln for these pieces.  It is always a gamble what will come out of the wood fired kiln and in this case I'm on the fence.

A slab built vase.  Happy to announce NO LEAKS.
I have begun using a wheel lately.  It is a magical thing.  The trick is to get a good teacher and expect to fail miserably for the first 6 months.  Again this water bowl was wood fired in the same kiln.



I do like the change of colour. I tell myself it is the sun rising.

Mark your name in Chinese even if you are Australian!  For some reason I think it looks a little mystical.

        Chop stick rests
I was recently married and the plan was to make chop stick rests for all the guests.  I lost patience and only made 30.  Annie taught me how to scratch 'married' in Chinese characters on the side of each one.

                                                        
                                                 
                                   I tried to make each one slightly different in cut and shape.

This particular glaze was gas fired.  I know very little about gas firing, least to say it has brilliant results.  I love this smooth glaze.  I have to thank my teacher for glazing them for me.  He won't tell me how he made the glaze.  Secret.
I wrote an earlier post about buying some glazes.  This is the first time I have used them.  

I was pleased with the result - I was hoping for more red speckles but it is good enough.

Cheers
My first coffee mug.  A touch small.  Perhaps tea?

                       Brilliant animals are bulls!  The young bull, old bull joke is a favorite of mine.
I tried to make an old bull.  More challenging than I thought!  4 days work.
You might notice a few bruises and broken limbs here and there not to mention a damaged horn.  I would like to say I incorporated these aspects into my bull design, being a fighting bull, but the reality is that it cracked and I had to glue some of it together after the glazing.


The END!

1 comment:

  1. G'day!
    Firstly as one of the recipients of the chopstick rests, we were really impressed with the beauty of the glaze: you need to hassle your teacher for the recipe!
    Also, I'm told that to capture muscle movement and power in molding figures in clay is one of the most difficult skills for a sculptor: you've done well as the bull does, indeed, exude power.
    The cups look good (love the handles!) and the red speckled glazed bowls have great symmetry.

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