For tonight’s SURFACE DECORATION class we’re tackling stamping & sprigs! Shocker, right? I mean… it was bound to happen at some point!

And I figured it would be a lot more “fun” for them if they had a blank surface to play with in class tonight. Can’t wait to see what they do with these plain bowls?!

Looks like Molly has made the perfect pasta to fill one of my sgraffito carved bowls.
Little sauce. Little cheese. Lots of love. Thanks for sharing Molly!

Another serving bowl… Stamped. Spiraled. Soda-fired.

Last night was the first class with my SURFACE DECORATION students. We decided to “ease into it” with some surface basics… making nice pots & then playing with some thick white slip to create fun textures & patterns. Looking forward to revisiting these later to “play” with some glaze combos to accentuate the groovy textures.

Another beautiful glaze combination done by my fellow Lillstreet teacher Chelsea! I made the bowl, but she made it sing! Several layers, some dipped, some painted, some splattered… all with a plan to optimize the drippy blends, yet to avoid running off the bottom onto a kiln shelf. Another unexpected success!

My favorite kind of collaboration… where I make the bowls and someone else glazes them for me!!! Yes, as I have said before many times… glazing is my least favorite part of the whole pottery process! So here’s one of my “class demo bowls” that Chelsea glazed as a demo for her class. Lots of glazes, lots of layers, lots of colors. Stunning glaze combos Chelsea!!!

For the final class of my Intermediate Wheel class this session, we decided to do a trading-stealing-exchanging-White Elephant kind of game… with the category being large serving bowls. We had so many beautiful bowls in the mix… that all got mixed up, traded up & each went home to new homes!

One of my Beginning Wheel students had a glaze run & some kiln wash on the bottom of her bowl. She was trying her best to get it off… and then I offered up my DiamondCore Grinding Bat for Carly to borrow. We put it on her wheel, wet the pot & the bat… and then spun really fast & pressed the bowl down!!! Voila’… smooth & clean! One of the best tools ever… thank you DiamondCore!!!

Just one of my “not-so-basic” class demo bowls… after a banded layer of white slip, then carved through with leaf patterns. A quick layer of an amber celadon glaze tops it off. And I’m kinda diggin’ the sparkly gold flecks in the pooled areas.

As part of the GREAT LILLSTREET THROWDOWN, my students we encouraged to finish their projects from Week Two for judging at Week 9… this past Thursday. Remember back when they had to throw a large serving bowl, pass it to another to match, and then pass it back to finish it up… and make coordinating serving utensils to go with it. Well here are the Top Three… congratulations Ashley, Katie & Aaron!