Thanks to my potter-friend Emily Murphy for sharing…
I can’t quite figure it out… and nor could she. But I love it just the same!
It looks so simple, but I’m sure it’s not. I’m sure the “secret” is in the original “silkscreened” image being altered just a bit. But how does the squishy balloon-thingy not smudge or smear the images?… or stretch them out of shape?!

If only stamping textures onto a bowl were this easy too???

Click here for the amazingly simple, yet incredibly technical video.

Some pots travel far, some stay fairly near.
It’s always fun to see where my pieces have traveled to. Where they now call HOME.
Like this stamped & soda-fired bowl  and ewer who have a cherished display place right next to some beautiful antique heirlooms in Maryann’s house in Baltimore.

Look who’s taken up residence in a large stamped bowl. Apparently these mischievous Elves have abandoned their “shelf” to wreak some havoc with my cousins up in Minnesota!!! Looks like they’re taking a “bubble bath” in sugar cubes!!!

A quick layer loaded into a bisque kiln.
Rapid replenishment for my Second Holiday Home Show on Saturday, December 12th.

Thrown & stamped Saturday… Trimmed & handled Sunday… Drying & into a kiln Monday.

The latest batch of porcelain mugs… trimmed & handled yesterday. A few small bowls too!
Drying today. Anxious for the kiln.

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.