Chawan

[Moonshadow]

The chawan or teabowl is a vessel used in the japanese tea ceremony. The one I made would be called a yunomi as it is a rough bowl meant for drinking the tea out of.

 

 

 

I created this teabowl from a medium brown colored stoneware, the unfired clay is similar to a dark wheat color and almost orangish brown. I threw a fistsized lump of clay on the wheel, centered it and made a cylinder. Once I did that, I pulled clay from the bottom where it was thicker to pull out clay from the bottom and even out the walls. I made the walls roughly 2/8ths to 3/16ths inches thick. I made the belly wide first, then tapered the ends in slightly. Once this was done, I removed it from the wheel and once at the leather-hard stage, I trimmed the bottom to make a slight foot. I also cleaned up any fatness at the bottom to make it taper down to the ground. At this stage, I also checked the top to make sure it was round.

 

 

 

After I was through trimming this, it went into the kiln for a bisque firing. Once it was out of the kiln and cooled, I glazed it with a temmoku, leech white, tomato red, keator saturated iron and yellow salt by dipping it into the buckets of the glazes. Then it went in to a glaze firing at cone 10. And, this is the finished bowl.

 

 

 

 

That is the teabowl I made. The opening lip is 3 1/2", the base is 2" and the overall height is 3 1/2"

 

 

 

I have thrown 33 others like this one with varying sizes and glazes.

[Sam]

It looks very impressive and oriental looking. It's great to see artisan crafts in the gallery! I'd love to see this with an intricate painted design :thumbup: