Enough of this Winter. I’m trying to channel my “inner-Spring”… and I’m thinking
these will become berry bowls after some stamping, trimming & hole drilling!

Tonight I did a little detailing of my class demo bowls from Tuesday night.
They’re still a bit too wet to trim, and al little too squishy to stamp… but what the heck…
I decided to go for it!!!

Stencil & Slip Bowl – now with a decoratively stamped rim.

Flared Flange Bowl – now with a stamped interior band.

Split & Pinched Rim Bowl – now with stamped dots on the pinches!

Super-Wide Flanged Bowl – now with a band of decorative stamping.

Fluted Rim Bowl – now with some graduated “beads” along the rim.

Flanged & Fluted Bowl – now with a ring of stamps!

Today I was contacted by an Estate Sale coordinator. She was asking if I sign my pots with the signature “Gary.” After a little double-checking, I found out that a collection of my work is going up at an Estate Sale at the end of the month. Hopefully another pottery-lover will snatch them all up to start their own collection!

I find it pretty cool that she could track me down purely by my signature!
Although I’m still not quite sure how I feel about my pots being in an Estate Sale???…
I guess better than a Goodwill or Salvation Army, huh?

Click here for the link if you want to go snatch them up yourself.
I’m sure you’ll get a great deal on them!

Well, we’re at Week Four of our Beginning & Advanced Beginning Wheelthrowing class.
And tonight we tackled BOWLS!!!

Bowls on purpose… not a whoops, my cylinder just turned into a bowl!!!

So I taught them the basics of throwing a good bowl. Right from the start… from opening the ball of clay with a curved bottom… to shaping the bowl with a rib from inside. I always stress the importance of throwing the “inside” shape of the bowl. The outside you can trim to match the curve of the inside… not visa-versa!

After I threw my first demo bowl, my students went back to their wheels to start making bowls. In the meantime, I threw eleven more of the same basic round bowl. We then all reassembled for Part Two of the bowl demo… altering & decorating each of them in a different way. My goal is to show my students a few quick tricks, encourage them to try some new techniques and to emphasize that “it’s just clay” and they need to play more & express themselves!!!

So here are the twelve bowls after Part Two.
They all started the same, but didn’t stay that way for long!

Bowl #1 – Just a couple finger flips for a new “twist” on a round bowl.

Bowl #2 – And if two twists are good…. eight twists might be better!

Bowl #3 – Then I flared out the rim to add a flange all around.
This one will be stamped later when it stiffens up a bit, but not too much… tomorrow?

Bowl #4 – A bit of flange is good, but more dramatic is always better!
This one will be stamped later when it stiffens up a bit, but not too much… tomorrow?

Bowl #5 – Why not combine them – finger twists & flared flange?
This one will be stamped later when it stiffens up a bit, but not too much… tomorrow?

Bowl #6 – With a simple dragon-scale tool…. a few impressions makes a nice flower!

Bowl #7 – A split rim pinched back together… kind of a quilted rim!

Then I introduced them to colored slips. I planned ahead and threw my bowls with Ochre Stoneware. When it fires it will become a dark chocolate brown. I knew that white slip would make a great contrast in the end. I explained slip possibilities & overwhelmed them with too many options. You could see their eyes glazing over… or looking back in fear. Too many options!!! And we haven’t even glazed anything yet!!!

Bowl #8 – After coating the inside, I dragged a round tip through for a fun spiral effect.

Bowl #9 – Kinda the same, but this time banding & squiggling through the white slip.

Bowl #10 – Another white slipped bowl, but this time chattered with a rounded rib.

Bowl #11 – Two letters cut out of the newspaper stuck on & slipped over. Then pulled out to reveal a little monogram inside the bowl. Shhhh… Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a “really good chance” that it will go to my niece Taylor… they’re her initials!!!

Bowl #12 РThe last bowl was a two-tone ombr̩ effect with white & blue slips.

So now all twelve bowls are back in my studio. Wrapped up for the night. Tomorrow I will do a bit of stamping, some more altering and some more detailing of the bowls. Always my favorite demo of the session… now I just hope my students make a bunch of bowls. And not just plain old round ones!!!

This is kind of amazing…
in an oddly simple, old-school, and yet I’m sure not-so-easy-to-do kind of way!
Pretty impressive. Makes me want to start “spinning” more bowls to see what shows up!!!
Click here for the video!

With my second Holiday Home Show this coming Saturday,
I’ve been getting a few new pieces out of the kiln just in time… limited quantities!
This last batch of glazed pieces comes from a cone 10 reduction gas kiln.
Some of them have some pretty sweet glaze runs & chemical interactions.

You can grab one of these beauties this coming Saturday at my place!
The SECOND Holiday Home Show
Saturday, December 14th from 10:00am-6:00pm.
If you need home address specifics, just send me an e-mail or Facebook message!

A quick glimpse “before & after” a cone 10 reduction glaze firing…
just in time for this Saturday’s Holiday Home Show.

Here’s a stamped platter leatherhard “before”… and glazed “after.”

And here’s a stamped bowl leatherhard “before”… and glazed “after.”

Thrown one night. Stamped the next. Sure, they were a little squishier than I would normally like, but I had to keep them moving forward as I’m kind of rushing to get everything done. I’ve got another bisque kiln in a few days, and then my soda kiln a week from tomorrow. So I’m trying to rush a few last pieces through the process to get these bowls into both kilns… and done in time for my Holiday Home Show which is two weeks from this weekend!

Bowl #1 –

Bowl #2 –

Bowl #3 –

Bowl #4 –

Bowl #5 –

Bowl #6 – Somehow I forgot to photograph this one before I stamped.
Suddenly it was just done?!

It was fun to come into the Lillstreet Gallery this evening and see a great table setting FULL of dinnerware by my friend & potter Delores Fortuna. It’s not every day you get to see so much of Delores’ great pots all in one place!!!

Tuesday night I showed my class how to make larger bowls and platters.
I made three pieces for them… but I felt two of them needed a little somethin’-somethin’.
Tonight I pulled out some stamps and did a bit of decorating. So here goes…

Starting with the plain bowl that I threw Tuesday night. It was wrapped up under plastic and tonight it was on the “wetter-side” of leather heard. Perfect for stamping!

Once the bowl was all stamped, I moved on to stamp the platter too. So I found the stamp I wanted and began indenting one by one by one… all the way around!!!

Eventually both of these class demo pieces were stamped and done for the night. So I put them both back under plastic so they can dry a bit slower. I’m hoping that tomorrow I might be able to trim both of them.