Finally, I am back in blogland. A lot has happened in the past three months and while I tried to document it, I didn't have enough time for sleep much less for updating my blog.
This first picture is my new studio from about a week ago, round two of making a very large special order for one of my customers. The first time there was a glaze mixing mishap and they all needed to be remade (moral of the story? Test your glaze batch before putting it on an entire month load of work).

But that whole messy business is finished up and in the kiln so what's next on the agenda? Christmas ornaments! I meant to design and make some the last few years but somehow I never get on that bandwagon soon enough for it to matter. So here's attempt batch #1:


They aren't perfect, a bit weighty and I'm not sure how I'm going to finish them, but it's exciting working so small. Never done that before! Next on the agenda? Serveware. I'm thinking cake stands and salt and pepper shakers and gravy boats and butter dishes and long stemmed glasses.

The big glazing day was yesterday....here's a few quick shots:

That blue one in front is my new slip color with my new design ideas. I drew a flower pattern and then flipped it and turned it inside out so it's the same pattern but the mirror/inside out image on the four corners (if that makes sense!).

This top shot is just the insides glazed and the bottom picture is the outsides sprayed also. I love spraying the glaze on the outsides because with my carving it gives the pattern a very subtle texture. The insides I prefer to be dipped or poured because when my clear is thicker, it turns slightly blue instead of just being clear. Funny how those little tiny details can make such a difference!

Tomorrow is my firing! And since I'm not actually in charge of firing the kiln, I don't want to be anywhere near the studio. I'm going to Wekiva Springs in a little town outside where I live in Orlando, Fl. I'm gonna bring my I-pod and a book, lay in the sun and relax! If only it was just a little warmer outside I may go for a dip in the springs. The water is 72 year round (it's where the manatees go in the winter) so maybe I will bring my wading shoes!

Yesterday at the studio, I brought my new camera so I could get a few good shots of some of my in-progress pieces. I'm very excited about my new camera (a Nikon D60) that my wonderful hubby bought me as a present for officially starting to sell my work. It will also come in handy for keeping my portfolio up to date.

This pitcher was one of my favs from yesterday:
I'm very happy with how the above little flower turned out! It will look just lovely pooling glaze!
Below, is a close up to explain my process a bit. See the fine line running through the red underglaze line? That is a shallow cut from an exacto knife. Then I fill it in with the red slip and when it's all stiffened up quite a bit, I use a metal rib to scrape away the excess and I am left with a red incised line (like the bottom picture).



Here's another pitcher that I made yesterday along with a full shot of the above finished:


These dots in the sides are something that is new to this recent batch of pots made within the past two weeks or so. None have come out of the firing yet so I'm pretty anxious to see what they look like. I really hope they bleed down a bit in the firing. Although I have done dots from a slip trailer these are actually made from pressing the end of a paint brush into the wet clay and then filling the inside with underglaze. One thing I love about doing these dots is that I throw thin enough so you can see the clay pushing through on the inside as well!

Here's the decorating of my first batter bowl:

Those first two are pre-scraping and the last one is the finished (ready to be fired) batter bowl. I love, love what is happening under the handle on the back with the green only inside the handle and the leaves wrapping into the inside!

I also decorated ten teacups/mugs yesterday but I didn't get pictures of those. When I left they we all too wet to scrape still so that will probably be the first thing I do next time I get into the studio! I'm pretty excited also because this Saturday is the first wood firing of Jack's new kiln. Can't wait to see how all their pieces turn out! Too bad my patterns would be totally obliterated by the firing. One of these days I may make some things especially for the wood kiln. I do love the atmosphere a wood kiln creates!

So I know it's been awhile since I've posted anything on here but I have been very busy in the studio (a real studio in fact) at my teacher's house. They were on vacation and I was house sitting and keeping their dog company. So without further ado, here's a few pics from my time there.


So on top of having the use of a studio for a few weeks, I also really enjoyed being able to use their dishes since they have quite the collection of pieces from other ceramic artists. I think this mug was my favorite while I was there. I want to say it was made by Sarah Jaeger but I'm not entirely sure. I just thought that it looked like one of her pieces. On a side note, that Mortar and Pestle set are something that my teacher made. Also, I can't forget little Ida who is the sweetest dog anyone could ever ask for (even if she is a little neurotic!).


I'm really happy with quite a bit of the things I did while I was there. Although most of the pieces were mostly pretty simplistic shapes (vases, bowls, etc), I was exploring shape with them and found a few that I really enjoyed. I made one vase in particular that I think the shape would be fabulous for a set of covered jars. Also, in the way of decoration, I went further with my vines and leaves.

So one of the new things I played with was confining the floral patterns to the slipped blocks of the pieces. I like to think of those as barriers for the pattern at times and then also at times I like to completely disregard those edges because they look like too obvious of a place to end the design. I played a very little bit with the deeper carving again that I did a lot of at the end of last semester.


I was happy just to see how much I enjoyed the repetitiveness of making the same forms over and over again. I did rather like that part about it. These forms pictured here are only about 5 days of the work that I made. I also made two more pitchers, finished the two tea pots, made 8 more bowls and 8 more cups. Those last bowls and cups still need to be decorated though. I will call over there tomorrow and see if I can bring those things here because I don't really want to be in their way in the basement. Also I think I left my CD in the CD player. :)

This last week has been a week off of ceramics for me. I'm not sure if it was the frustration over the earthenware plates (only 5 survived-- I was having major cracking issues) or whether my energy travels in three week bursts but whatever it is I started making again today. Now I have six plates and I'm left waiting for the leatherhard stage to begin my decorating. In a few minutes I will be off to my teacher Erin Furimsky's house to help her out in the studio for a bit and I'm going to attempt to transport about 9 of the plates I've made. This will be a bit nerve racking since I have never transported anything in the greenware stage before so keep your fingers crossed that they will all survive.

Also, at last, here are a few pictures of my earthenware plates that somehow turned out a bit rougher than I was hoping for. I think a good next time thought would be that maybe I need to layer more colored slips (so the entire surface except for the carved areas is covered!).

It's getting a little bit late for me right now (yes, it's only 11pm- I must be getting old) so I'm going to make this post very short. I just wanted to upload a few more images of some of the plates I've been working on.


These first three pictures are different views of the same plate. As you can see, on that one I'm really playing with the idea of putting design all over the plate rather than just the typical areas. I like the idea that someone has to actually pick up the piece to get the full effect of it. Each plate I'm making is completely different. I make up the flowers and patterns as I go along and I even use different colored inlay in each (currently I'm using blue, red and black with red being my fav). Yet they all have enough common elements that they still seem to belong together in a set-- the floral patterns while different have the same leaf element which ties them together and I'm trying to keep the shapes simular (which is a bit easier on these molded plates than it is when throwing!).

This is still that same plate in front (since it's my fav) with some of the others stacked behind.

So I took a few pictures of my makeshift studio setup that in my kitchen right now. This first one is my little table covered in my latest project: plates. They are actually molds of paper plates that I made by laying a slab of clay in between two chinette brand paper plates (the paper part is the most important). I saw the idea in one of the millions of random printed materials I grabbed from NCECA this year.
These are the ones that still have the plates attached to the bases and are still drying. I think these look very "paper plate-ish". My hope is that my finished ones do not. These are my two finished ones. I really should have taken a picture of their feet as well because once those were added, I felt like they lost the paper plate feel. In these pictures, however, right next to the other ones, they still feel a bit that way. Um, other things I'm working on with this set will be using slip squares under the floral patterns as I did this semester in my sets. I don't have any slip on hand right now, but once I get some I think I will be more satisfied with them (my plan is to "borrow" some from the studio.....keep your fingers crossed for me!). To me, they just look strange without the slip. The lines seem awkward, stuck in the middle of the plate for no reason rather than looking like their sectioning off different areas of design. They are, in short, a work in progress.