Another dark & dreary… oh wait, there it is!!!

The morning started out with huge cloud-cover… questioning if we would ever see the sun?! And then suddenly, the sun popped through… beautiful… even if just for a few minutes!

Looks like a perfectly warm & cozy dinner on a cold winter’s night… a little handmade Zuppa Toscano by my friend Julie!

Looks like Gerry is starting his day off with a healthy bowl of oatmeal with some cranberry relish on top! I’m sure it tastes better from a handmade ceramic bowl… although I still prefer my oatmeal as a COOKIE!!!! Thanks for sharing your breakfast & your pottery collection with us Gerry!

And another one finds it’s way out of the frozen cold… and into a warm home! This little fortune cookie was found sitting right on top of the entrance sign to south unit of Illinois Beach State Park.

More fortune cookies still out there…
in both the north & south units of the park!!!

Looks like one of my pottery students weathered the elements today for a little “fortune cookie scavenger hunt” up at Illinois Beach State Park. Good find Ashley… and thanks for sharing your wintery adventure with us!

Looks like the fortune cookie scavenger hunt is well under way. Last weekend I hid twenty-two handmade ceramic fortune cookies throughout Illinois Beach State Park to spread some “good fortune” for 2022. Looks like my friends Allison & Terry have found three of them… which makes nineteen more to find… so maybe today is a good day to head to the beach for a little scavenger hunt fun?!!!

Apparently the bananas went a couple more days… by then successfully made a nice banana “bread-cake-pie?” baked in one of my handmade pie plates! Thanks for the photos Rosene.. looks YUMMY!!!

Ripe tomatoes propped in a beautiful blue berry bowl…
loving how the stamped texture frames the vine of tomatoes!

Another brisk morning in the single digits.
Loving the chilled mist & slushy ice on the lake.

Okay, so it’s been a hot minute… a couple weeks since… a couple holidays in between… but I’m finally getting around to showing off Christine’s beautiful pieces that came out of her VERY FIRST kiln firing!!!

Christine has been in my pottery classes for several sessions now… Beginning, Intermediate, Throwdown, Surface Decorations, etc. She’s always been on a quest to gather as much information as she can. She’s like a sponge in class trying to soak everything in. She’s been experimenting with everything she can get her hands on… lots of test tiles, underglazes, overglazes, hi-fire, low-fire. etc. She’s been getting a wide range of results – some beautiful, some not-so-much. So we’ve been discussing some other “options” for glazing of her work… particularly some of the stamped platters & bowls still unglazed from our Surface Decoration class almost a year ago!

One of the options we were discussing was Cone Six glazes. I’ve been doing some cone six firings myself with my work, and she’s liked the effects. So she expressed interest in trying that option… except Lillstreet doesn’t offer Cone Six firings to the students. So I worked with her independently as a friend & mentor instead of as her “teacher.” She glazed up her pieces with some commercial glazes she had purchased online… a group of “celadons” from Amaco. Loaded & fired… and now for the BIG REVEAL!!!…. sorry for the delay…

Here we go…
She started unloading the kiln… her first kiln ever! She had to learn how to load a kiln, stack the shelves, use the posts, etc. And now the excitement of her first kiln unloading!!! Shelf-by-shelf… revealing the treasures inside!

It was SO MUCH FOR ME to see the sheer joy & excitement on Christine’s face… or at least her forehead… every time she pulled out another piece! Large platters with a lot of handpainted underglaze details…

Or my favorite… surprise, surprise… this amazing stamped platter from our Surface Decoration class last Spring.

And a few more stamped beauties…

Followed by the bottom shelf with a lot of great colors! And especially intrigued by how the celadons from Amaco are making all of her textures & details really POP!!!

Plus, there were some wonderful “retro” mugs in her handpainted collection… so vibrant & fun when fired at Cone 6.

And some great “ombre” gradation mugs with sprayed glazes making the blend!

And again… my favorite stamped platter!!! Well done Christine!
I can’t wait to see where the success of this latest “test” by Christine takes her down her pottery path… as I’ll see her again in my class in the next session!