Last night was the last night of the Summer session of my Tuesday night Beginning Wheel pottery class. It’s been a great ten-weeks of fun for the students. Each of them has made great advancements in their throwing. So we celebrated with a very sweet potluck, and a fun “Plate Exchange Game.” Everyone had to bring in a plate they had made during class to trade & exchange with someone else. Everyone brought in a plate and left with a different one.

By the end of the shenanigans, Catherine had my amber celadon stamped plate, and I ended up with this sweetie from my student Diane. She has been a “pottery sponge” every step of the way this session. Whether it has been tackling every demo, or finding as many new techniques as possible on YouTube, Diane has been cranking out some fun pieces all session long. This plate was thrown with Stoneware With Ochre for the dark chocolatey finish. She used a simple dragonscale tool for the pattern on the rim. After bisque firing, she inlaid temoku glaze in the pattern and gently wiped off the top surface – effectively leaving the temoku only in the deeper stamped recesses. She waxed the entire rim and then dipped the plate in an apple green celadon glaze for the center food surface. I love the pattern, and the shiny metallic-ness of the rim. It was so much fun having Diane in class… and watching her pottery adventure “unfold” every week. Nicely done Diane… can’t wait to have you back again next year during your teacher’s summer break!

So even took great glazing notes in her “adorable” handcrafted journal…
I would have expected nothing less!

One of my students was thrilled to find her pot on the Student Show-Off Shelves.
It was an experiment of glazing with bubbles! Thanks to Dave & Will for introducing this new technique… which has now become “all the rage.”

Congrats Katie!!! Your bowl looks fantastic!

FYI… Full blog post to come… hold your horses…

Today the kids came back to see how much their Monday plates had dried. Now they need to make the rest of their pieces AND glaze everything by the end of the day. Starting off with a discussion of how INCREDIBLY FRAGILE their plates are at this stage. And that if something breaks off now that they’re dry there is NO WAY to put it back together. I like to put a tiny bit of fear in them so they will work with a little extra care & patience. I tell them that if something breaks off at this point, it’s either gone for good or they need to make a replacement piece!!!

We only had one overnight casualty. One of the plates dried too fast and cracked right through the center. And then when I moved it to the table, the tail popped right off into my hand. Not a good sign. So I quickly made the “base” of another fish plate for her, and she did the detailing when she got in. Problem solved. Back up to speed. And that brass dragonscale tool that sits in my toolbox came in really handy to make some fish scales!!!

After they finished building the last of their pieces, they all began painting them with our Teacher’s Choice brand glazes. They’re a simple collection of colored glazes that work really well on these kids projects. It’s so much fun to see their monochromatic plates & cups come to life in color… knowing that they’ll get even better & more vibrant after they’re fired.

And “somehow”… I don’t know how, but “SOMEHOW”… the kids start a discussion and decide “all by themselves” that we should have a Chocolate Chip Cookie Bake-Off Contest tomorrow. Brilliant idea. On their part. And who am I to say no?!! I would never want to dash their dream & desires especially when there will be a lot of cookies in it for ME!!! So glad they thought of this idea all by themselves… with just a smidge of coaxing by me… a smidge… maybe a tiny bit… allegedly.

So if there’s going to be a contest… of course we need a BEST COOKIE TROPHY!!!
So I threw this little ditty together for the winner!

Swing by Hinsdale this weekend for the Hinsdale Fine Arts Festival.
I’ll be there in Booth #100 with plenty of handmade, decorative & functional pottery. Mostly stamped & soda-fired, but also some of these new, bright pops of color!!! We’re there from 10:00am-5:00pm both days. Hope to see you there.

Fresh from the kiln… three new stamped platters!!! Bright colors. Big fun.
On their way to the Hinsdale Fine Arts Festival this weekend.
Saturday & Sunday in Burlington Park from 10:00am-5:00pm.

Glazed & loaded another kiln today.
This time, a cone 6 firing for a quick pop of color.
Just in time for the Hinsdale Fine Arts Festival next weekend.

Sure, the “Quite White Collection” might be the new big thing… all the rage!
But there were a few colors in the same glaze kiln!!!
I especially like how these two glazes really accentuate the stamps on these mugs.

My kiln is still a little too warm to unload…
so I took off a couple layers of bricks to speed it up.
And look what I found front & center?… a nice new stamped vase!!!
Hope there’s more beautiful things inside later tonight!!!

Almost ready to start loading. My pots are glazed, wadded and separated by shelf depending on what kind of clay it is. I like to stack my soda kiln with porcelain in the back, B-clay in the medium soda areas, and soda clay where it will get more soda exposure.