So then THIS happened…
Last night in my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class I was doing a demo on throwing-off-the-hump. And then Christine threw out a challenge… and you know how I love a good challenge!!! More to come…

Another marbled clay class demo… this time with white porcelain & green-stained porcelain! Looking a little blurry after throwing, but as I trimmed the interior & exterior “skin” away you can see the layers & marbled effects. Trimming with my DiamondCore Tools made it easier with their T2 Arc Trimming Tool that has a great curved blade to get inside with ease… worked outside too!

Did some trimming of my marbled clay pieces from class last week. When you’re done throwing, the outer skin is all kinda blurred from the clays mixing & blending while throwing. But when you trim off the exterior surface, the crisp marbled effect reveals itself in striking ways!

Spent the afternoon teaching a soda-firing class subbing for Levi today. It was a great group, but it was kinda killing me to see bright blue skies through the studio skylights… mocking me to go play outside! Luckily, we all got to “celebrate” NATIONAL OREO COOKIE DAY with single serving packets that I brought for them to take home!!!

Once I had finished my class demos with marbled clay, my students got all colorful and started throwing their own marbled pieces! So much fun… as it’s kinda magical when the colors appear!!!

Just for fun, I followed up the first marbled clay demo with a simple two-color piece. Kinda looks right for the season… as the color reminded me of a yummy Shamrock Shake!!!

This week in my Beginning Wheel class we played with colored clay for “marbled” pots! I started by coloring some clay ahead of time for them with mason stains layered & wedged into B-Clay. We then layered regular B-Clay and/or Brown Stoneware with the colored clays… and then gave it two simple wedges to start the marbling. So much fun to see the colors presenting themselves as you’re throwing. When we were done, the pieces still have a “smudgy” layer of mixed clays like a dirty skin on the pot. When they get to leatherhard, we will carefully trim the entire surface off to reveal the clean lines of layered & marbled clays.

And yes, if we were doing more than one or two pots, I would have definitely used rubber gloves. But since this was a “quickie” demo and not a long-term pottery career of marbled clay… I figured it was tough enough for my students to throw their own forms, let alone to do it with gloves on!

One of my students has been working on some small handbuilt vases with a brick pattern. But she was frustrated as she was limited in size to the texture mat she was using for the brick pattern. So I offered up some of my textured rolling pins from STODOLA as an option. Rikke chose this grid pattern… and is so excited to make larger versions of her small vases now that she can roll larger slab textures! So excited that she’ll be ordering her own custom brick pattern rolling pin from STODOLA soon!

Click here to go to the STODOLA website!

So we did the same crackled slip demo in class… this time using the same black slip with sodium silicate over my newly green-colored porcelain. Not quite sure how I feel about this one. Kinda channeling Elphaba or some swamp creature… but who knows… we might still learn to love this, right?!

After playing with black slip on white porcelain, we started wondering how we could add more color to it. So we decided to try using some colored clay under the crackled black slip!!! And I started making a batch of GREEN PORCELAIN!!! Not really sure if the green mason stain would stain my hands or not… but I was willing to take one for the team!!!

And or the record… my hands are no longer green!