shoes

only golden or orange or sparkling shoes for my fun trip to a wedding in california!

LIAV camp

 i go to life is a verb camp nearly every year ..... and the creator, patti digh, asked me if i could make award plaques for the recipients of some awards ..... so ... i think a plaque is wood ... and these are my usual canvases.... but, i think they turned out swell......

you are awesome.

i made this for my pottery teacher of 15+ years .... it was her 80th birthday. she is amazing. extraordinary. awesome. and i wanted her to know it! ...... the canvas is big .... maybe 24 by 30.... i have another background similar to this ready to be something for someone.

before and after

 here are some wheel thrown pots ..... all bowls actually ..... above they are glazed, but not yet fired .... below they are fired ..... i am really trying to improve my skills..... i'm perfectly able to center and throw a good sized bowl on the wheel .... but now i'm trying to make GOOD stuff .... with better craftsmanship as i have my own wheel and more time to work on some issues i have!

big and happy

 i made a quite large happy bowl ..... it is a shallow bowl and i have high hopes for it!!! only time will tell!

i found a giant leaf on the side of the road ... its stalk had been run over ... all the other leaves were standing tall ... and this was on the ground .... so i felt ok taking/stealing/rescuing it for a higher purpose. i carried it about two miles home.

 i rolled it into clay... then trimmed it ... then made a nest of towels and dry-cleaning bags for it to rest in ....

rolling the leaf took a lot out of it ... i'd been hoping to use it for multiple platters but discovered one was all it could manage.

i babysat it. i went down to my basement studio and visited it often .... to make sure it didn't crack ... it was doing great .... 

i measured twice to make sure it would fit into my kiln .... i knew i was cutting it close! 

and then the magic moment of opening the kiln .... oh! no! .... it had exploded. likely because it was not bone dry .... i thought it was! wah!!

 i did not do my usual kiln happy dance!

unicorn. you. you'nicorn.

i'm a painter. sometimes in all my pottery joy, i forget that. but i had an idea for a BIG piece for a friend .... and then decided to do a small version for LIAV camp auction .... so i did the little one first to practice before i tackle the giant one..... i like the painting ... but i'm super proud of the words. that's my poem on there.

when turquoise goes green.

 i'm not sure what happened.
and i'm a bit disappointed.
and it's one of those things, where i should be appreciating the learning opportunity....
but my turquoise glaze ( a new one) turned out green.
objectively, they look fine.
but since they don't match my expectations, i have trouble loving them.
i did not do the open the kiln happy dance.
but i think it'll all be ok.
as potter errors go, this is a small one, huh?

8 bowls

i glazed 8 bowls tonight ....

 that one in the bottom left of the photo is pretty big ... top left is pretty small .... these are all working on better form on the wheel .....

four of the bowls have a celadon base ....

 four of the bowls have and ann's blue base .....

 the celadon ones have blue bits ... the blue ones have celadon bits....

... some of them have black .... it's the part that looks black in the bowl photo....

two of the celadon ones have some mexico point  on them too .....

and now it's all about finger crossing to see how these mixtures worked out.

turquoise!

i adore this new glaze. 

i forget the real name, but it is turquoise wonderful to me .... and did well highlighting the textures i love so much .... i have a quartish jar of it and had to brush on three coats, front and back .... so i need to sort out if i can buy it by the gallon .... or the five gallon ... or whatever amount those massive buckets of glaze are.... so here are three platters in new turquoise.

red! with specks!

hey!

red glaze!! with specks.

it is a crystalline glaze. while i was glazing them, andy saw them and said, what are all those chunks? .... and those were the crystals .... that then awesomely melt into the glaze .... 

i think this looks awesome on the bowls (they are small, see last post) ..... but not as super on the textured plates. it's not terrible on the texture, but i think the crystals obscure some of the texture .... 

still learning. i like that.

happy bowls ....

i pulled four happy bowls out of the kiln this morning .... 

so on my kiln/glazing learning curve, i've at least found an excellent clear glaze that i love..... 

on the wheel throwing learning curve, i'm still WAY at the beginning. but happy here. i'm just practicing small to improve my technique. i can throw bigger, but they aren't as technically proficient ... so i'm upping my proficiency small this week ..... 

i'll probably make big here and there cause its fun, but in my head, i'm going for higher quality (of which these are fine but not FINE)