Another late night in the studio. Playing with porcelain and some stamps. Just trying to make enough new work to fill next weekend’s soda kiln!

My class demo bowls have made it out of the bisque kiln…
so now it looks like I have a lot of glazing to do!!!

Last night was the “Benefit For Eric” at Lillstreet Art Center.
One of our own Lillstreet Community who is battling brain cancer and incurring a ton of hospital bills. The prognosis isn’t very good, but it was quite uplifting to see so many people pull together for this special cause. It was a nice event in the Lillstreet Gallery with food, drink, raffles and Silent Auction with all proceeds going towards Eric’s mounting medical expenses.

Luckily, I came home from the event with this beautiful woodfired bowl by Simon Levin. One last bid in the Silent Auction at “just the right time” and I was the proud winner of this stunning bowl. Thank you Simon for donating this bowl to the Silent Auction… so that I could add yet another one of your pieces to my collection! And help a good cause at the same time.

So wee more of Simon Levin’s beautiful wood-fired pottery, click here for his website.

Last Tuesday was my class demo on how to make a basic bowl on purpose. Followed by showing my students some quick tricks & techniques to make each bowl unique. And that not every bowl needs to be precious. That they should play with their clay and try some new things. If it messes up, you just cut it off, re-wedge it and throw it again. It’s just clay!

For the demo I used a full bag of clay and made seventeen bowls. The bowls all came up to my studio where today I did a little more “detailing” with some stamping. I would have loved to save this part for my students too, but I was afraid they would all be too dry in a week’s time. So here the the photos of some of the bowls, freshly detailed… AND the stamps that did all of the hard work making a good impression.

Last night was my favorite demo of every session. The night we discuss making “bowls on purpose” instead of a cylinder gone bad. So I start with a simple demo of the basic bowl and how to use a rib inside to shape & refine. My students then go back to their wheels to practice while I throw a bunch of very similar basic bowls. Once I have a “full bag of clay”s worth of bowls, I call them all back for part two of the evening’s demo.

The second part is where we talk about making some creative alterations to their bowls. To add some design & interest. To play with their clay – and not be satisfied with that plain old round bowl that the wheel pretty much made for you. Instead, we talked about some simple tricks and introduced the use of colored slips for even more decoration. And how to “commit” to the process, have fun and don’t think of the clay as being “too precious” to try new things. It’s just clay. Here are my demo pieces…

Bowl #1 – A simple bowl… made more fun with two simple pinched flutes.

Bowl #2 – Fluted in eight places… a simple two-finger flip & twist.

Bowl #3 – Flared flange rim.

Bowl #4 – Flared flange with four fluted edges.

Bowl #5 – Simple concentric bands pressed in to give the glaze a place to puddle & pool… using the rounded end of my wooden knife.

Bowl #6 – Wide flange flared out.

Bowl #7 – Patterned texture created with the edge of a rounded rib… pressed in all the way around. Then a small concentric circle in the middle to “hide” the random points created during the texturing.

Bowl #8 – Simple flower texture impressed with a dragon scale tool.

Bowl #9 – Split rim pinched back together in eight places.

 Bowl #10 – Split rim fluted outwards in four corners, and then gently curved further outwards in between the fluted points.

 Bowl #11 – Split rim fluted both inwards & outwards.

 Bowl #12 – Thick white slip with a simple spiral dragged through while spinning on the wheel.

Bowl #13 – Thick white slip covering the interior. The banded lines & squiggles using a thin wooden tool with a rounded end.

Bowl #14 – Thick white slip covering the interior. And then a repetitive “chattering” with a plastic rib. Tapping through the white slip as the bowl is rotating on the wheel. Start in the center and work your way out towards the rim.

Bowl #15 – Several layers of thick white slip, then a finger squiggle through the slip while rotating on the wheel.

Bowl #16 – White slip painted over a “newspaper” stencil letter. Wet the newspaper stencil, carefully press it onto the bowl, paint the edges with slip and then cover the whole surface. Let sit for a few minutes and then carefully pull out the newspaper stencil.

Bowl #17 – White slip & blue slip in a blended ombre effect.

Yes, the bubble glaze craze continues!!!
Here’s another one of my students playing with the “glaze bubble” technique again.
Great glazing fun with great results… and so much more fun to watch someone else do it!!!
Blow harder Colin!!!…    Blow. Scoop. Press. Repeat.

Basically it’s just glaze and dishwashing soap mixed up. Then blowing bubbles with a straw. We’ve found it easiest to scoop up the bubbles with your hand and then gently press them onto the pot. Be careful of the runny drips though… we don’t like those!

As the bubbles pop, they leave behind a slightly textured residue of glaze.
Don’t smooth it in… that’s the beautiful bubble pattern you’re looking for!
The more color contrast between your two glaze choices, the more bubble effect you’ll see!

Hopefully I’ll get to see this bowl of Colin’s before he snatches it up to take home.
I’ll try my best to share a photo if I can get one!

More bowls freshly stamped in the studio.
With all of the other talented artists at “Art In The Garden” this year… I’ve got to step up my game and make sure that I have some new work to show off in the garden as well!!!

Tonight I did a little stamping & detailing of my class demo bowls from Tuesday night.
“Not so basic” just got a little more textured!!!

Last night in my Beginning Wheelthrowing class we worked on bowls.
Basic bowls thrown the right way and on purpose… NOT a cylinder gone bad.
So we did a demo of the basic bowl with a nice round interior using my green plastic rib.

Bowl #1 – Plain

After this first bowl, my students went back to their wheels to keep working. As they were making pots, I continued to throw more bowls. After I had made 15 more bowls, we reconvened by my demo wheel. I then showed them some quick ways to “decorate” their basic bowls to make them “not so basic” anymore!!! We talked about playing with your clay, taking a chance, committing to your alterations and making the bowl “yours.” Just because the wheel makes round pots doesn’t mean that they need to stay that way!!!

Bowl #2 – Two Twisted Flutes.

Bowl #3 – Eight Twisted Flutes.

Bowl #4 – Thin Flange bent outwards.

Bowl #5– Wide Flange bent outwards.

Bowl #6 – Flange and Twisted Fluting.

Bowl #7 – Split Rim with Pinches.

Bowl #8 – Split Rim and Fluted In & Out

Bowl #9 – Split Rim in a Lotus Flower Style

Bowl #10 – Plain with a Flower Pressed in the bottom with a simple dragonscale tool.

Then we started working more with colored slip. For the demo I used thick white slip and thin blue mazzerine. Now looking at the photos, I probably should have used a darker slip to show more contrast to the lightness of the B-Clay. Oh well… next time!!

Bowl #11 – White Slip Spiral using the rounded end of my wooden knife.

Bowl #12 – White Slip Squiggles with my finger tip.

Bowl #13 – White Slip Banding & Squiggles

Bowl #14 – Blended Gradation Ombre with Chattering Texture

Bowl #15 – Wide Flange with some Mazzerine Squiggles.

Bowl #16 – Mazzerine Slip with a couple Newspaper Letter Stencils.

So now they are all in my studio under wraps. Covered with plastic so they can dry a bit slowly. I’m hoping that maybe tomorrow night they will be ready for some stamping, detailing & accenting. If so… most like more photos will follow!

Swing by Hinsdale this weekend for the Hinsdale Fine Arts Festival.
I’ll be there in Booth #100 with plenty of handmade, decorative & functional pottery. Mostly stamped & soda-fired, but also some of these new, bright pops of color!!! We’re there from 10:00am-5:00pm both days. Hope to see you there.