get it done.

i think about it. i don't just do it. sometimes i do. but not enough. it's hard to not be tied to the outcome. lots of the time you want it to be awesome without taking the steps it takes to be awesome. and i think we could be talking about all sorts of things. not just art.

glazing technique.

i have a new glazing technique that i mentioned a few posts ago .... 

my pieces end up being fired four times instead of the usual two.

 i tried it on some wobbly vases ... and now on a big platter......

 i think it is glorious and well worth the effort......

(that cracker is for size reference ... it was handier than a quarter or penny_

we'll see how glorious i think it is .... you'll know by whether i do lots more like this ... or not many ... it's harder/longer/more work than what i usually do ..... do i love it enough for that not to wear me out? we'll see. what do you think? worth the extra effort?

three ladies

the lady in the blue hair was a gift for christmas.

the orange hair lady has awesome glasses and expressive eyes.

the yellow haired lady has luscious orange lips.

the orange and yellow haired lady were birthday gifts from my awesome family.

they are all by an artist in kentucy that comes to atlanta and does arts festivals.
we've seen him quite a few times.

his name is brad devlin. i hope i get more brad devlin art sometime. i love it.

his art is bold and colorful and quirky. kind of like my house.

pie.

no one in my house much likes cake. i am a pie person. imagine my delight when i got a key lime pie for my birthday ... yes!

exotic!

i had a birthday in early may. when we went to yo yo ma's for hibachi birthday dinner, this was my fortune cookie. i loved it.

actually. i just lied to you. that was not my fortune cookie's fortune. i didn't like mine. so i traded it. "dibs on your fortune" works when it is your birthday. i traded for boy.beck.artist's ... no good ... then i traded for girl.beck.artist's .. not great ... then i traded for little.e.beck.artist's ... not right .... and then i finally put dibs on mr.e.beck.artist's ... and this was his .... you will travel to exotic places. perfect. i want that one. he willingly gave it up. luckily, we'll do all our exotic traveling together!

what do you do when you don't like your fortune cookie fortune? act more mature than i do, perhaps?

glazed and confused

my pottery style is rarely busy or fussy or difficult .... it is usually about a happy process and an easy glazing technique. but not so much lately. for these pieces they were super fussy, busy to make ... and then i fired them four times (that's twice too many) .... once to become bisque ... once to fire the solid underglazes... once to fire a black underglaze wash ... and once more for a final clear glaze. oh my. i love the way the colors came out ... now to sort out what else i want to make and use my oh.so.long glazing process.

leaves. walking.

i am a fitbit addict. i'm not sure i've ever discussed that on this blog. my fitbit and exercise and walking are currently more pervasive in my life than making art.... but just bigger than *making* art. i still think about art as much as usual. especially on walks.

i walk down a windy road every day at least once. lately, since the weather had been lovely, i've been doing it every morning and every evening. EVERY time i notice this plant. the leaves are giant.... don't know what it is. don't know if someone thinks of it as a weed ... it's in an untended spot ... growing wild and free ....

 so i always think about plucking a few leaves and doing rubbings of them ... or pushing them into some clay ... i love them and want to remember them. so i took a picture. though, hopefully, one day on the way to pottery, i hope to remember them and pluck some on my way .... a leaf bowl would help me remember how much i love seeing these giant leaves every day.

do you see ordinary things every day and still notice them? there's lots of stuff i don't notice. but these leaves are standouts. there are as eye popping to me as the foxes i sometimes see.
what do you see?

good day

i got a very cool white board for my birthday. for now it is in my kitchen giving gentle reminders/support/advice to the family. i love it. the equivalent of a new toy for me.

pottery. blue green.

 i super love this pottery piece. love. it was fired three times. once bisque. once with a magical wash of turquoise underglaze. and then the finale with mexican point green. that turquoise underglaze peeking through is just fab to me. i love it. this is my favorite piece i've made in a long time. yay.

and as of this post .... it has been gifted away to a girlfriend and a church lady gift swap. fun!

turquoise

i added medium and a variety of aqua, turquoise and blue glazes and paint to my papered canvas .... 

 after it was good and painty i use plastic ... in this case i previously painty trash bag... to take some paint up ...

it leaves a nice crinkly texture on the papered canvas .... in a more random manner than i'd get with a paintbrush ...

small joys.

i have loads of little joys in my life ... do you? well ... i'm sure you do. but are you aware of them? here's my locker at pottery. 113. tie dyed. mostly red. with a double pipe cleaner for the lock. the combination to the lock is three twists to the left. it's very tricky and does well keeping thieves out.

large platter

i have this new glazing idea ... so i've made a large platter to try it out on ... i should wait til my vases come out of the kiln .. but no ... i'm just moving on .... this hodgepodge spot is how my ceramics table always looks .... i'm always clearing my own stuff out of my way to have a space to work .... that lion king bag is full of my textures ... the bag is from a trip to england about six years ago ... we went to the lion king ... i love souvenirs that stand the test of time ....

colored pencils

i've been doing some color pencil doodling lately ... i've been wearing out pencil sharpeners .... this is a tiny fraction of colored pencil collection.

vases.

i have a new idea ... for some vases ... and really it is just a new to me glazing idea ... patchwork ... but i'm going to do a black rub on it before the clear glaze ... so .. we'll see if they turn out groovy or not ...

red LOVE

one of my LOVEs is now red .... i LOVE that red paint ... it is thick and rich and awesome ... and i painted some papers the same ... they will be birds on a commissioned piece .... well ... probably.

turquoise canvases.

 i papered my big canvases ....

 i blue glazed my big canvases ....

 i fretted about the right colors for my back grounds ....

 and i did dark letters on one ... and decided that they were TOO dark for the art i was doing ... so i papered and turquoise glazed a third canvas .... so now i have two for the commissioned piece ... and
this third one that will just be something else all together ....

roygbiv and a dictionary....

 i love this organized picture ... all my paints filed in bins by color ... i'm working on the opposite side of the table than i usually do so the paints ROYGBIV read backwards ....

 and this is a brand new to me, 40 year old dictionary, that i'm just starting on .... this is my third red american heritage dictionary for collage ... my family had this same dictionary when i was a kid .... not sure where it is now, but i've not laid a hand on that one, i promise.

LOVE

i have an artsy friend who has a new gig going with wood and a fancy saw.... she usually uses gorgeous, fancy wood and makes coolio things ... but i went for the plain wood so i could paint it .... i bought four .... i'm pretty sure one will be orange .....

cleaning.

my art studio is a crazy disaster mess ... or it was on january first ... but slowly, slowly, slowly i've been working on straightening it up .... this is my new favorite spot .... a whole cabinet filled with awesome papers to collage ... the middle shelf is atlases and bigger books on the left .. .and maps and sewing patterns on the right .... the middle of the bottom shelf has awesomeness like monopoly cards and paper game pieces and such ....

romania ....

i have not been to romania ... but my twins have. and girl.beck.artist bought me a romanian art history book..... so that i can use the pages in my collages. i love that. 

 they were in romania for a habitat for humanity build .... worked on three houses there .... had an amazing time .... learned new things in a new place ... vazut .... decorului ... dezvelli ... cand .... do you know anything about romania?

angels....

raku angels.... rick's turquoise is my favorite glaze i think... but i love them all.

i save these angels to give away on special occasions .... mostly to friends who need an angel present ... cause angel presents can make you feel better when things aren't going so great.

another angel post ....

 look! the raku firing is done .... so the hood has been lifted and everything is FIRE hot .... and glowing ...

i'm a bit intimidated by the whole fiery hotness of the raku firing. the kiln goes up to 1000 degrees or something insane. i'm not in charge of the firing, so i'm not certain .. but i'm pretty sure it is THAT hot.

 the pictures above and below are of my bins that i put the angels in after the raku fire. you need a closed (closable) container full of combustible material ... i used newspaper ... ripped up into a nest.... the angels were put onto the paper and the newspaper instantly caught fire ..... i let it flame a bit and then put the lid on .... so that all sorts of chemical reactions could go on in the heat and fire .....

 the picture below, taken through a smoky, raku haze is two of the three containers i used for my five angels ....

red hot angels ....

 two of my angels lost their halos ... alas, i think they are still angelic ... i hope to add halos later ... some metal or other probably .... a washer perhaps? or fancy, twisty wire ... that's what i did last time i lost a halo ....

 this is the gas raku kiln at the spruill center .... above, you can see the one that is lowered and has my angels inside .... and the one above is lifted up .... you put the pottery on the shelf and then lower the canister/hood/cover ... then gas on and fire up high ....

this last picture is through the peep hole on the top of the kiln .... the inside is aflame ... so hot it is green and blue and everything is glowing ....

when angel wings look like mustaches

i know they look like mustaches ... but they aren't .... you can see that one white card that was the template for the wings ... i just flipped it to make it a double....

 so i made five mustache winged angles .... i tried to give them movement ... not standing quite upright ... with a bit of a tilt to their bodies ....

 so they have some shimmy ... some lean ... some bounce in their step.... maybe even they are dancing angels ....

 the hope is that they make it through the firing without losing wings or heads or halos ....

glazing day at pottery .... five platters ....