A quick throwing session… some quick bowls before teaching class tonight!!! Always good to “squeeze in” some production work before heading downstairs to play with my Beginner’s!!!

Looks like someone is having a yummy dinner tonight…
and a handmade bowl makes it all that much better!!!

From Matthew in Stevens Point, Wisconsin…
“I love my coworkers’ wild rice, with a local farmer’s oyster mushrooms, another farmer’s spinach and microgreens, and another farmer’s beef tenderloin, all in a bowl by a Chicago-area potter you guys probably haven’t heard of… they call him the Stamp King.”

Finishing up a large batch of berry bowls… so much quicker & easier with my power drill. Just some quick cleaning-up of the tiny burrs when they dry. Soon enough they’ll be dry enough for the bisque kiln. Now I just need to make a bunch of drip plates to go with these berry bowls!

Time to make some berry bowls… so much easier with a power drill to do the “heavy lifting”!!! Plus, the range of drill bits gives you a good selection of hole diameters!

Well, it looks like I’ve got a good bit of trimming ahead of me today… hoping to get it all done before teaching class tonight?! A bunch of bowls at a good leather-hard state ready for trimming… one of my favorite parts of the whole process!

After class last Tuesday, I spent a little more time with my class demo bowls. Just did a little more stamping & detailing… making the bowls even more not-so-basicER!!!

And for now, they’re back under plastic for the night… going to have a LOT of trimming to do pretty soon!

Another fun demo for my Tuesday night class… teaching my Beginner’s how to “throw bowls on purpose, and NOT cylinders gone bad.” So I taught them basics of how a good bowl starts at the very beginning when you’re opening up your lump of clay on the wheel. We talked about how to get a nice smooth interior curve… without any indents or “beginner’s ledge” as we like to call it.

After showing them all how to make bowls with intention, my students when back to their wheels… while I threw a few more! The plan is to bring them back together after making my bowls so we can discuss how to make the bowls more special. I tell them that basically the wheel did all the work for them… making it nice & round & smooth. But now it’s up to them to start decorating & making it their own. So my demo is just a chance to offer up some fun options for them to “play more with their clay.”

After making my plain bowls… we moved on to the fun part of the demo!

Bowl #1 – Two fluted indentations… quick & easy… no one ever said the rim needs to stay round!

Bowl #2 – And if two fluted edges are good… maybe eight flutes are better?!

Bowl #3 – A flared out flange… basically folding down the upper rim to lay it flat.

Bowl #4 – A flared out flange and a fluted rim combined on one bowl.

Bowl #5 – If a flared rim is nice, maybe a wider rim is even nicer?

Bowl #6 – Our first split rim bowl… this one with two indents. My plan is to add a handle up & over to create a “basket” bowl.

Bowl #7 – Another split rim… this time indented on four sides.

Bowl #8 – Another split rim… dented in four times, and dented out four times!

Bowl #9 – Another split rim bowl with eight quick pinches around the rim.

Bowl #10 – A textured “flower” or “snowflake” at the bottom of the bowl using a metal dragonscaling tool.

After altering the first ten bowls, we moved on to a discussion about adding colored slip to their projects. How & when to do it… as well as what they might do with it later. We discussed more dramatic glazing over the textures… as well as sgraffito & other carving techniques.

Bowl #11 – A thick layer of white slip… and then a spiral made by dragging my wood knife through the slip while the bowl was rotating on the wheel.

Bowl #12 – Thick white slip with fingertip squiggles while the wheel is spinning.

Bowl #13 – Thick white slip with vertical marks created by dragging a plastic rib through the slip.

Bowl #14 – Thick white slip with rhythmic chattering marks.

Bowl #15 – Then we added a color, and made some ombre’ blended colors.

Bowl #16 – Ombre’ blends are nice… but add a spiral to make it more fun!

And for now they’re up in my studio under some plastic. I’ll give them a little time to stiffen up… and then “quite possibly” do a little stamping & detailing before trimming the bottoms.

And then last night after “stamping”… we continued on to “sprigging.” Kind of the opposite of stamping in a weird sort of way. Basically it’s pressing clay into a textured mold, and then popping out a little “medallion” of clay to score & slip and attach to the bowl. So the sprigs kind of turn into “inverted-stamps” creating a fun texture pattern wherever you choose to place them. All from one little handmade sprig mold… and more fun for my SURFACE DECORATION class last night!

And boy did they have fun!!! Lots of groovy stamping going on last night in my SURFACE DECORATION class. Always fun to see how they can release their creativity & create such different patterns & designs using MY stamps… instead of trying to “copy” my stamping style!!! In the end they all made their very own stamped MASTERPIECES!!!

Last night in my SURFACE DECORATION class we all tackled stamping as their technique-du-jour! Not only did I bring down my pre-made bowls for them to play with… but I also brought some of my own handmade stamps! So we talked about some fun stamping techniques… and then I set them loose to do their own stamping!!!