Painting black slip on white porcelain… kinda antithetical,
but setting up a good “canvas” for a little sgraffito carving!

So it’s never quite as easy as you would think.. it takes several layers and several paintbrushes full of black slip before you start to get a nice even banded layer. But with a bit of paintbrush perseverance…. I finally got them done, back under plastic waiting for them to set-up a bit more… and then some day soon I’ll start carving some sgraffito patterns into the black banded areas!

Just a little early morning stamping going on… no sunrise bike ride in the rain!!! Instead, playing with some stamped patterns on these little porcelain bowls.

All stamped for now… back under plastic so they can stiffen up a bit more… and then I get to trim some footrings onto the bottoms of them!

After playing outside all afternoon… it was back to the studio tonight for more porcelain fun!

Apparently Spring has sprung… at least from these pretty little flowers that popped up in the kiln room! They’re from a sweet little workshop that Mary Drabik taught at Lillstreet. Yes, it’s warmer out today… but we’re still a ways away from cheery flowers like these!!! I’ll take ‘em wherever I can get ‘em!

This latest batch of porcelain mugs is done for the night. Just a little bit of detailing & painting of colored slip accents. So now they’ll dry, go into a bisque kiln, get glazed & wadded, and then go into my next soda kiln firing. Lots of steps in the process… the process that I love!

Painting some accents & details on my new porcelain mugs. A little more flashing slip to will add some color & drama during the soda-firing.

Scratch, attach, repeat… repeat… repeat…
It’s been a very productive day playing with porcelain making more of my favorites!

Porcelain handles pulled… just setting up a bit before I start attaching. I like to sit them up in an arched curve as they stiffen up – so that the majority of the bending is already done so there’s less cracking if they dry out a bit too much.

Porcelain cylinders need porcelain handles to make them into porcelain mugs, right?! So this morning I’m making some handles out of these little nuggets of porcelain.

Let the trimming begin!!!…
and have I mentioned lately that I LOVE trimming?! Yep, I do.