For my first real post on this blog, I thought I would show everyone how I make my most popular item, the shark sushi plate.
It starts with me pressing clay into into this plaster mold I made from my original shark head sculpture. For a while I was sculpting each shark head from scratch, but now making the plates is faster and I get more consistency and detail in the finished product. The mold has definitely increased the quality of my plates.
On the left is what the shark head looks like right after it comes out of the mold, as you can see it has seam marks from where the three part mold meets and the mouth is covered. On the right is a picture of what it looks like when I cut the mouth out and then what it looks like once I clean it up. Sprucing up the shark head also involves redoing the eyes and redefining the gums.
Here is how I start making the teeth. I make a thin strip of clay and cut them out with a needle tool. After they are cut I attach them inside of the mouth and do some additional shaping so that they don’t look so 2D. Fun fact: I once got an email asking if I could make 20 shark plates without teeth.
I make each plate by hand by rolling out the clay, cutting out an 8 inch by 15 inch rectangle, and pinching up the edges. I then attach the shark head to the plate and add the water splash. The water is the final touch that takes the plate from looking like it has a shark head sitting on it to looking like the shark is jumping from the water.
Once the plate is done being sculpted, it has to dry and
be fired to cone 06 in the kiln, which is 1000 degrees Celsius or 1830 degrees Fahrenheit. After this first firing, the clay is called bisqueware and is still relatively fragile and porous to water. It isn’t until the second firing that it becomes a functional piece of art.
I will follow up this post with part 2, which will show how I glaze the plate.
Avi Ceramics 