Low Rent Renaissance

Made with untreated burlap soaked in concrete fortifier, saturated with industrial grout, and layered many times with mortar. These steps insure a strong planter that will last forever. "Sculpting" mortar over a concrete base.  

 

This little swimming pool -- about 12' x 6' x 4.5' deep-- is almost thirty years old and has been refurbished several times. It needed some patching and painting and we almost did away with it, but in the end couldn't part with it. We used an epoxy pool paint this time -- a deeper blue and very pretty, I think. Small, but perfect for a dip in the evening.  Here is a younger me digging that hole.  Paradise days -- my lovely wife and our good dog, Henry.

  She is about 10.5 inches -- entire piece about 16"x16" The tallest figure is about 11". Bed is about 9" x 12". She is about 12" tall.

Various mixes of Portland cement mortar over hardware cloth and poultry wire, stained with exterior wood stain and Rustoleum latex enamel.    

  My four pieces that were fired in my rocket kiln. I'm still painting my bisqued earthenware with acrylics.  I want to be able to fire my ceramic efforts here, at home, and have no space for an electric kiln. I liked the idea of a rocket kiln -- less fuel, more heat, less time. It was an interesting experiment but not a raving success. I made a few mistakes, learning as I went and sometimes, sadly, after the fact. The temp inside my barrel kiln reached 1480F at its peak -- short of my goal of a sustained 1900F. I'll be trying to correct my mistakes and going another round with my rocket kiln soon.  The heat riser was cast from vermiculite cement -- 4 parts vermiculite to one part cement. I got the idea from a video I watched about building rocket stoves. I later learned that concrete -- even vermiculite or pearlite concrete -- is not ideal for achieving the kind of temps that firing ceramics requires. However, I'm sticking with it for now, even in my rebuild. There is cu...