My very first teacup

As written in a previous blog post, because of tea and a certain anime I became obsessed with making my own teaware.

So, here I am, looking for ceramic workshops in Cluj. Somehow, I find one and I muster up my courage to go for a visit.
I put myself on a chair and the guy in charge (we'll call him A) starts explaning about everything and guides me through every step in making a beautiful teacup.
He tells me to start with a technique called "nerikomi", make a salami combining clays, then cut pieces, put them side by side to form a rectangle and then press it into a predefined form. Pressing it into a "biscuit" ceramic bowl is the easiest way of achieving a form. It's fired at 800-1000 degrees celsius and it absorbs moisture, so once I put in into form, it can easily separate.

So that's what I do, I'm given multiple clays with similar shrinkage. Clay shrinks after moisture evaporates and if you make nerikomi and the shrinkage is too different, it will separate either when drying or biscuiting.

I make a rectangle using white, brown and some black, and start pressing it into form, being VERY careful not to break anything. Afterwards I put a little circle foot on the bottom of the cup and with that three hours have passed.

With that, I await the next workshop which is two weeks later. The workshop used to be held twice a month before transitioning to twice a week.

Next workshop comes, I carefully sandpaper the cup and make the form of another cup (which I probably won't talk about, didn't come out that great).
And so, another two weeks pass, my cup was fired at 850°C and now it's time to glaze it. Because it's my very first cup and I want to see the pattern so I use a transparent glaze.
Another two weeks, my cup is fired at 1200°C and it's finally ready. I can take it home and enjoy it.

That was the story, it took quite a while to finish the cup, and I put at least 5 hours in.