Definitely feeling the Spring vibes here with some colored slip accents on my bisqued mugs. Getting ready start glazing these… inlaid glaze in the stamps & a tenmoku liner glaze. Then it’s off to the soda kiln this weekend where these colored slips will react & flash with the soda atmosphere during firing. The colors should become darker, richer & more saturated… if all goes as planned?!

Looks like Leigh is doing a little Monday-caffeinating on another MUGSHOT MONDAY. Kicking off her day with some Spring flowers along with a stamped & soda-fired mug by you know who!

Sure, I could leave the mugs plain… and worry about adding some color when I glaze them. But since these are destined for the soda kiln… I’d rather give them some color now with colored slips that will change as the flames touch them in the kiln… depositing the soda mixture that will also “glaze’ the exteriors!

Scored & slipped… handles attached! We officially have more mugs!!!
A labor of love… as in “I truly love making mugs!”

Pulled some handles… and flipped them around so they can stand-up with a nice curve to set-up. Once they stiffen up a bit, I’ll start attaching them to my mugs. Score, slip, attach, repeat… and repeat… and repeat…

Here we go… making mugs again! My favorite thing to make!!! And today I’ve got a lot of handles to attach… because without a handle it’s NOT a mug!!! So I’m starting with some nuggets of clay… getting ready to pull my handles.

So not all Mugshot Mondays are happy Mondays! Luckily this mug had served a good ten years or so… before taking this tragic plunge! Sorry Keith… but now there’s one less “vintage” mug in circulation!

Spent some time in the studio tonight stamping patterns into my latest batch of mugs!

From Melissa…
“I know you’ve been waiting for this! My kind of an Irish breakfast, missing grilled tomato (ate it last night) and black and white pudding (not allowed in my house). Have a little tea spoon my Mother stole from somewhere in Ireland in my lovely Shamrock mug! Got to have the Heinz beans made in the UK!”

You know how my students “love” a good challenge… so my Intermediate Wheel class once again asked for a “fun” challenge project to work on throughout last session. I decided to challenge them with “Stacking Mugs.” A set of four or more matching mugs that stack well… and have some sort of design that ties them all together when stacked, but still look cool individually. I think they all stacked up quite nicely!