For tonight’s SURFACE DECORATION class, we’re going to be working with stamps & sprigs! And since I figured my students might need something “plain” to decorate… I “might have” thrown a few bowls for them to play with… allegedly. Can’t wait to see what they do with them!!!

Last night was the first night of my new Surface Decoration Techniques class at Lillstreet. We started with introductions & overviews… and then started off with our first technique. I pulled out some thick colored slip to add some texture, pattern & color to a few basic bowls & cylinders… and hopefully some fun effects when we get to glazing these pieces!

THICK SLIP BOWL #1 –
I first added a layer of thick white slip on the interior of the bowl. I showed them a few different patterns… spirals, squiggles… wiping & smoothing it back after each one. We “ended” with a spiral in the bottom and a rib-fluted pattern around the rim.

THICK SLIP BOWL #2 –
Pretty much the same technique of Bowl #1… just with a thicker layer of slip. I felt that the rib-fluted edge wasn’t apparent enough the first time. And I like how the thicker slip made it more look more intentional.

THICK SLIP BOWL #3 –
Another layer of thick white slip, and then a chattered pattern added throughout. I uses a rounded rib, and tapped the slip by moving the rib up & down… and up & out… while the bowl was spinning. The pattern is created by the speed of the chattered tapping, the speed moving up, and the speed of the wheel’s rotation!

THICK SLIP BOWL #4 –
For this bowl we did an ombre’ blend of white & green slips. A simple blending of colors. I feel it still looks kinda plain, so I think there “might be” a little bit of carving to come on this one!!!

THICK SLIP BOWL #5 –
For this bowl, I “tried” to squirt a perfect spiral of black slip into the bowl while it was spinning. But the slip was a bit too thick and didn’t come out of the bottle smoothly…. spurt… spurt… sputter… glops!!! So then we needed to “fix” that… so I smoothed it out with a rubber rib giving it an uneven black slip surface with some clay still showing through. We liked the marble effect… but it seemed a bit wimpy. So I added a spiral dragged through at the end.

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #1 –
We’ve all seen this technique showing up on our Instagram Feed from Joe Thompson @oldforgecreations… so we decided to give it a go! Not a real success… the slip was a bit too gloppy… there were a few “chunks” in it. But when I squirted it on… and then tapped it down a bit to make the slip move… we did get a lot of “oohs & ahhs” from my students!!! Definitely not as easy as Joe makes it look… but fun!

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #2 –
We decided to try another version of the drippy slip technique. This time with two colors of slip. I tried to add a “stripe” of green slip down the side of a squirt bottle… and then add more white slip “on top” of the the green. Idea being that when squirted out, you would get more white slip with a little undercolor of green. Kinda gloppy… but not bad for our first attempts! I’m pretty sure I’ll be leaving this technique for Joe who perfected it for us!!!

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #3 –

This time I covered the exterior with thick white slip, and then dragged a rounded rib across the outside to make these horizontal ribbed grooves.

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #4 –

For this cylinder, I tried again to make a “perfect” spiral going down the outside with a squirt bottle filled with slip. But again, it sputtered & spurted. So I draged a rubber rib across it and it surprisingly made this marble-clay-like effect. Done... and so much easier that actually making colored clay and throwing with two colors in a marbled clay!

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #5 –
Because I was having a bit too much sputtering & spurting with the squeeze bottles, I added some water to them and shook them up. But maybe a bit too much water?… as it wouldn’t hold its shape & thickness any more. So when I squeezed the white on the side at the top, it just ran down and covered the exterior. So I tried adding some green, and it too ran down and covered the entire exterior. So I tried again, and again, and again… each time trying to vary the amount of slip squirting out. At some point, my layers started to give me a groovy-drippy tie-dyed look… so I stopped!

And for now they’re all in my studio under wraps.
Today I’ll open them up and do a bit of details & refining.

GOOD NEWS! Looks like one of my students made “The Show-Off Shelf” at Lillstreet. Whoo-Hoo!!! Christine is coming in for my class tonight so she’ll be thrilled when she sees her colorful masterpieces proudly on display!… and a couple flowerpots still on the racks!

Just doing a little trimming project for my friend Mike. Refining & trimming the exterior of a fresh pinch pot form he’s using in his slip-cast mold-making class tonight at Lillstreet. A few refinements using my DiamondCore Trimming Tools to get the shape & smooth finish he was looking for!

And coincidentally, I went home with a mug from Kate, and a mug from Kathleen! So we kinda “traded” after a good amount of switching & stealing along the way!

Kate’s mug has a shino glaze base with a green glaze squirted on as an accent that does amazing things during the firing.

Kathleen went a bit more “structured” with thin tape lines to block out her primary colored design using underglazes.

Each of them a nice addition to my already overflowing Mug Collection!

Last night in my Beginning & Advanced Beginning Wheelthrowing class, we did our last class “exchange-trading-stealing” game … this time with a theme of TWO mugs… “matching” if you’ve taken my class before! These bright green mugs… that were “kinda” matching… were my entries into the game… and I believe they happily went home with Kate & Kathleen!

So after last night’s pottery class – the last of our Winter session – I walked away with two AMAZING flowerpots made my my uber-talented student Christine! I have some of the BEST students ever!!! Thank You again Christine – you rock!!!

And oh, but wait there’s more… SO MUCH MORE!!!
Or would that be MORE-eo?!!!

Not only did I get Christine’s Chicago flag flowerpot as part of our trading game… l ALSO got this amazing piece that she made as a surprise gift for me!!! Christine has been taken several of my classes and knows my penchant for OREOs firsthand. So she knew that this would be the PERFECT gift for me. And apparently, there was an all-on covert operation going on behind-the-scenes at Lillstreet to get it through all of the firings without me seeing it (thank you Dave – her cohort in crime!) Such an AMAZING way to end our session… with this AMAZING OREO PLANTER.

And don’t hate… but this is only Christine’s second handbuilding project ever!.. yes, she’s one of “those” people!!! I will do a post soon that show’s her step-by-step process in building this masterpiece!!!

After last night’s “exchanging-trading-stealing” game with my Intermediate class, I walked away with this SWEETIE of a flowerpot Christine! She’s been working a lot with terra cotta, white underglaze backgrounds & detailed paintings with colored underglaze. This one commemorates the Chicago flag & Lillstreet 2021. Great class… great planter… great souvenir of our class!!!

Tonight is the final class of our Monday Intermediate Wheelthrowing class. As with most of my classes, I like to do a little “trading-exchanging-stealing” game with my students. To celebrate Spring, the category for tonight is a wheelthrown flower pot with a plant growing inside. This is my entry in the game… blooming right on schedule!

FYI: We were supposed to end last week which would have been perfect for St. Patrick’s Day… but we got postponed a week do to the snowstorms that shut-down Lillstreet for two days! So we missed the holiday, but now they get flowers! HA!!!