2014-07-14 - Monday - Binkley, the cat, and pots

On Monday when I let Binkley out there was a cat in the backyard, but he never saw it.  If you look in the photo below you can see it to the right of the raised black beds.  That cat spends a lot of time in our yard, but apparently it's just a resting place as there are more chipmunks than ever.

Sometimes I will see it and crouch down calling to it without result.  It usually just stares at me and when it gets bored, just casually walks away.  100% cat.

Later I went to Clayworks and made some crock-type pots.  I need a new one to hold my wooden spoons and spatulas since the one Karen bought me about twenty years ago recently cracked.  I'm not sure what I want to do with the surface of these.  I might finally try my hand at slip transfer.  We'll see.

I also further pushed out some of the crackled pots I made earlier.

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2014-03-01 - Saturday - Crackled hands

I only had a couple of hours in the studio today.  I had planned on glazing, but the gas kiln was already loaded when I arrived.  I skipped the glazing and made some new pots.

I decided to make some crackled pots and wanted to add something to them as an accent.  I thought of painting designs on them but didn't have the time so I used my hands.  I really like the design and will experiment further with it.

The one on the left has blue slip and the one on the right has brown slip.  They both have white slip hand prints.  It's interesting to me how the hand print grows as the surface is stretched.

Out of the seven cups I trimmed on Wednesday, four had "S" cracks in the bottoms so now I have three.  It's been a while since I threw cups off the hump and apparently I didn't compress the bottoms well enough.  Live and learn and learn again.


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December 4 - Glazing and bisquing

Sunday I rushed to get my glazing done since the gas kiln was going to be loaded on Tuesday.  I had some crackled pots, a bumpy one, and I decided to test some new glaze combinations on my VSVs (Very Small Vessels).  I know I've said this before, but I am always amazed at how long it takes to get glazing done and I'm not even doing anything extravagant.  Part of the reason is that I am not 'in production' using the same two or three glazes on everything so there is a lot of mixing, applying, and cleaning up between each step.

Another thing that takes some time is the fact that I have to wait for the outside to dry after I glaze the inside.  The water from the glaze on the inside soaks the clay which would restrict the amount of glaze that would adhere to the outside if applied while the pot is wet.  This is a fairly new development for me as I am throwing thinner pots these days.  The crackled pots are especially thin since I stretch them to (and sometimes past) their limits from the inside after applying the slip.

As my friend and teacher Greg says, "If you're not crashing some pots you're not pushing your limits."

Amen, brother.

I also moved some dry bowls to the greenware shelf to be bisqued.

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