It was a very long week.
My Summer Campers this week were a bit younger than I’m accustomed to. Typically I work with the older kids (8-12 yerar olds), but this week I had 5-7 year olds.. and a 4-year old to top it off. I had to alter my project plans a bit, and change my expectations, but in the end they made some great projects… including these terra cotta plates.

It’s always good morning when the peaches you get at the Farmer’s Market are finally ripe!

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After years of seeing my biking sunrises…
My adorable niece Taylor sent me her first sunset photo tonight. I hope I may have had a small part in inspiring her love of photography & sunrise/sunsets!!! Now if we could just get rid of those pesky cars in the parking lot!!!

After camp, I went up to my studio to find a “surprise” pile of old clay to be reclaimed.

Katie Biderbost, one of my longtime pottery friends, gave me all of her “dead” bags of clay. She knows how much I love reclaiming to get free clay. So I sliced up several of the bags to help them dry out completely.

Tomorrow when they’re dry, I’ll crumble them up to add them into my reclaim bucket to begin the slaking process. Thank you Katie B. for the free clay!!!

Well, it’s been a tough week at Summer Camp. Fifteen kids in an age group much younger than I’m accustomed to. One of them is four years old!!! What? FOUR… are you kidding me?!!! So they’ve been a little rambunctious. A little squirrely. And more than a little loud. But today we started a weaving project… and who knew, that “weaving calms the savage beast”??? One more day to go with this bunch of youngins’!!!

The morning started out very dark, cloudy & windy. With large waves crashing in, it seemed pretty obvious that it was a better choice to take more pictures than to go for my early morning swim! My Mom would be pleased with my choice.

So I played with my camera… and tried to “catch” the waves.  And I’m glad that I did…
the sunrise was stunning through all of the colorful changes & crazy waves splashing ashore!!!

And then the sunrise colors blossomed… and the waves kept crashing in!

Without waves… and with waves… it’s all in the timing!

Sometimes the waves actually obliterated the sunrise from view.

Soon enough, the sun made it up high enough… and it disappeared behind the clouds.
Leaving just a beautiful stripe of gold along the horizon.

Soon enough, the clouds peeked out and created perfection in the sky!

Awhile back, I did a blog post about one of my students who was interested in adding some text to her pottery. She started using pasta letters… simply squishing them into the moist clay before bisque firing. Click here to revisit the original post on “Tracey’s Letters.”

Well, a lot of people have been asking for a follow-up… and here are some of Tracey’s glazed pots with “pasta-text” on them. After bisque firing, Tracey fills in the letters with glaze and then wipes the top surface away… leaving the glaze only in the letter indentations. This letter technique has been working well for her, especially with the dark “Stoneware With Ochre” clay body that fires up to a dark, yummy chocolate brown.

The morning sky had one big, mountainous cloud.
And as luck would have it… it blocked the sunrise!
At least for the majority of the morning.

It finally broke up as I was finishing my ride and we were finally treated to a beautiful, reflective sunrise!

Last week, I did a demo for my class on how to make plates & platters. I’ve kept the demo pieces well-wrapped, and occasionally sprayed, to keep them wet enough to stamp. Well, tonight I finally got around to stamping them.

Plate… freshly thrown… and plain!

A little stamping around the perimeter… and the stamp that did it all.

Once stamped, I did a little decorative fluting along the edge.

Platter… freshly thrown… and also plain!

Stamped around the perimeter… and the stamp that did the impressions!

Once it was all stamped, I did a little fluting around the edges for a slight ruffled effect.

So now they’re back under the plastic to dry a bit more to leather-hard for trimming.