You gotta love some free pottery! Especially fun on this cool weathered window ledge in the back alley behind Lillstreet Art Center. An ever-changing assortment of seconds, demos & cast-offs from some of the potters & students at Lillstreet. It’s “grab-n-go” fun for everyone!!!

Conveniently, two of my “original” class demo pieces came out of the cone 10 reduction kiln too! Each of these used the crackled slip technique – this time with black slip on porcelain. One of them I left white, the other one I colored the porcelain with ivy green mason stain. A thin spray of clear glaze gives them a finished shine!

Fresh from the soda kiln… my first batch of crackled slip pots!!! I wasn’t totally sure how these were going to turn out as they’re a brand new technique for me! If you recall, it’s colored slip mixed with sodium silicate which crackles when you throw & bulge it out from the inside. They’re a little rustic & crunchy… but I guess that’s the point, right?

I will say they’re growing on me…

Last night we unloaded the soda kiln, cleaned, scraped, etc… and then took some time to admire our newest treasures! My students were excited to see their new soda-fired pieces – and the randomness that happens during the firing! There were some pleasant surprises… and some not-so-pleasant surprises! But here are just a few of the pieces that came out of the kiln last night. Kudos to my students on their beautiful pots!!!

After they had all the FUN of unloading their newly soda-fired treasures… they also got to experience the “FUN” of cleaning the kiln, scraping & kiln washing the shelves, and making the kiln room better than we found it – ready for the next loading team to come in. So they learned a lot in this workshop… and they also got to participate in this sweaty GLAMOROUS side of soda-firing!!!

Once the door was finally taken off, my workshop participants got to see all of their freshly soda-fired pots! Some of them had never soda-fired before… some had never even loaded a kiln before! So this workshop was a great “taste” of the soda-firing process in a short time! Lots to learn. Lots to experience!

As part of last week’s class demo of “throwing-off-the-hump” we tackled a few Christmas ornaments. It’s never too soon, right?!

Topping off a trio of lidded jars with stamps, knobs & colored flashing slip accents. Just finishing up a few of last week’s class demos… with a couple extra lids “just in case!”

So Ive been working on some more of my “handbuilt-wheeltrown-combo” mugs. The bottoms are wheelthrown, the sides handbuilt, and then trimmed & refined on the wheel again! One of my favorite “tricks” for making fun textured mugs!

I start by making some textured slabs of clay. Sometimes with my own stamps, texture mats, or carved rolling pins… like this great one from STODOLA!!! They make tons of different rolling pin textures… including custom designs if you need that. Check ’em out at www.stodola.org.

After pressing in a texture, I cut them into straight-sided rectangles… long enough to be the circumference around the base of the cup.

I throw little “bases” on the wheel… just a small little disc wheelthrown on a plastic bat. I do NOT wire them off as I will be putting them back on the wheel to continue to the process and I want them to stay centered.

I start assembling them by wrapping the slab around the base – scoring & slipping along the way. One of the benefits of this technique is that the weight of the slab is supported by resting on the plastic bat. The extra part below the wheelthrown bottom will be trimmed off later. But it makes a great support system at this point.

Where the slab overlaps, I cut it on an angle and then connect that seam… trying to blend it together as best I can without ruining the pattern. A good “secure” seam is pretty important here.

After attaching the sides, you can spin them on the wheel and press outwards from the inside to give the cup a little curve & volume. I also give the rim a little extra attention to keep it round & smooth… like a wheelthrown cup.

I let the cylinders set-up overnight before trimming… under plastic so they dry slowly to leatherhard. At this point, they can be wired off the plastic bat.

I start by cutting off the excess slab that is “under” where the slab attaches to the wheelthrown disc with a sharp blade. Confusing a bit… as it is now “above” the connection point as the cup has been flipped for trimming.

Then I start trimming the bottom as though it were a “normal” wheelthrown cup. The Giffin Grip helps hold everything in place and centers things quickly! And my DiamondCore Trimming Tools work great for trimming a clan, crisp footring. I make sure to trim all the way into the textured slab so that it blends together and looks seamless.

Once trimmed, I let them sit under plastic while I pull some handles for them. Cups are cups… but a mug needs a handle!!!

So when the handles stiffen-up a bit, I start attaching them to the sides… usually where the seam is as a little “creative camouflage.”

I let the mugs sit under plastic overnight again so that they stiffen-up to leatherhard and the moisture levels balance out. Since these are going to be soda-fired, I decided to dip them in thin colored flashing slips. I held them by the footring and carefully submerged them into the slip to only cover the textured slab sides. I left the curved wheelthrown bottoms as raw clay. I think that the difference will look cool after soda-firing! As the slip was dripping wet after dipping, I propped them up on kiln posts so the dripping would stop before flipping them back over. I didn’t want big drippy runs going down the sides.

So now they’re drying and getting ready for a bisque firing. Once fired, I will add a liner glaze and maybe some other colored glaze accents. After soda-firing, the textures should pop nicely and the flashing slips will help accentuate the pattern.

Finger crossed.