With a little “creativity” with the bricks in the top right corner of the door, my kiln is close to top temperature. All of the soda mixture has been added. So now it’s a bit of a “soak” and then I can turn it off for the evening. Mission accomplished.

So I finally finished glazing & wadding upstairs in my studio. My cart travels downstairs in the rickety freight elevator. So I add some masking tape “seat belts” so nothing jumps off during the ride. And now it looks like everything made it down to the kiln room in one piece… time to remove the tape…. and start the loading… giddy-up!!!

Still glazing & highlighting some textures with a temoku glaze inlay.
Lots of squares… a little something new in the works in the studio.

Loading another bisque kiln… rushing to get everything done in time for my soda kiln. So much so that some of the pieces going in are still a bit damp. Not bone dry as they’re “supposed” to be. Fingers crossed…

Layer #1 – LOTS of mugs… filled with LOTS of ornaments!!!

Layer #2 – More mugs, ovals, and spoons.

Layer #3 – My new wall medallions… and some new wall blocks.

Layer #4 – More of my spoons resting inside a large box by one of my studio neighbors!

Layer #5 – Two bowls and a LOT of new wall blocks… a little wetter than I would like.

Trying on the edges… but still a little wetter than they “should” be. Oh well…
I’m pretty confident that they’ll survive the firing. They’re well made, hollow and as dry as they can be… so here we go!!!

Working up another batch of porcelain reclaim clay. It’s been slaking down in my reclaim tub, and then turned out onto a large plaster bat. I love how the clay “releases” from the plaster and kind of rolls right up when it’s ready to be wedged. Batch #1 done… about four more of the same still to do. Gotta love FREE CLAY!!!

Finishing up more mugs with some colored slip accents along the rim and in the stamps. Nearly four dozen mugs finished & drying for the night. Waiting for the bisque kiln. Then into my next soda kiln in a couple weeks. Making a LOT of mugs so I can start my annual Holiday Home Show with well over a hundred mugs!!! ‪#‎mugshotmonday‬

Adding some colored slip accents to my latest batch of mugs. A splash of color painted around the top rim and in every stamp. Many of them are considered “flashing slips” as they will change colors based on the effect of the soda atmosphere during the final firing.

Always fun – a “new” demo last night for my pottery class!
A freshly thrown plate with thick white slip painted over a piece of lace. I love the patterns & textures it makes when you pull the lace “stencil” out. There’s definitely some potential here… think I may need to play with this idea a bit more!

Last Tuesday was my class demo on how to make a basic bowl on purpose. Followed by showing my students some quick tricks & techniques to make each bowl unique. And that not every bowl needs to be precious. That they should play with their clay and try some new things. If it messes up, you just cut it off, re-wedge it and throw it again. It’s just clay!

For the demo I used a full bag of clay and made seventeen bowls. The bowls all came up to my studio where today I did a little more “detailing” with some stamping. I would have loved to save this part for my students too, but I was afraid they would all be too dry in a week’s time. So here the the photos of some of the bowls, freshly detailed… AND the stamps that did all of the hard work making a good impression.

Last night was my favorite demo of every session. The night we discuss making “bowls on purpose” instead of a cylinder gone bad. So I start with a simple demo of the basic bowl and how to use a rib inside to shape & refine. My students then go back to their wheels to practice while I throw a bunch of very similar basic bowls. Once I have a “full bag of clay”s worth of bowls, I call them all back for part two of the evening’s demo.

The second part is where we talk about making some creative alterations to their bowls. To add some design & interest. To play with their clay – and not be satisfied with that plain old round bowl that the wheel pretty much made for you. Instead, we talked about some simple tricks and introduced the use of colored slips for even more decoration. And how to “commit” to the process, have fun and don’t think of the clay as being “too precious” to try new things. It’s just clay. Here are my demo pieces…

Bowl #1 – A simple bowl… made more fun with two simple pinched flutes.

Bowl #2 – Fluted in eight places… a simple two-finger flip & twist.

Bowl #3 – Flared flange rim.

Bowl #4 – Flared flange with four fluted edges.

Bowl #5 – Simple concentric bands pressed in to give the glaze a place to puddle & pool… using the rounded end of my wooden knife.

Bowl #6 – Wide flange flared out.

Bowl #7 – Patterned texture created with the edge of a rounded rib… pressed in all the way around. Then a small concentric circle in the middle to “hide” the random points created during the texturing.

Bowl #8 – Simple flower texture impressed with a dragon scale tool.

Bowl #9 – Split rim pinched back together in eight places.

 Bowl #10 – Split rim fluted outwards in four corners, and then gently curved further outwards in between the fluted points.

 Bowl #11 – Split rim fluted both inwards & outwards.

 Bowl #12 – Thick white slip with a simple spiral dragged through while spinning on the wheel.

Bowl #13 – Thick white slip covering the interior. The banded lines & squiggles using a thin wooden tool with a rounded end.

Bowl #14 – Thick white slip covering the interior. And then a repetitive “chattering” with a plastic rib. Tapping through the white slip as the bowl is rotating on the wheel. Start in the center and work your way out towards the rim.

Bowl #15 – Several layers of thick white slip, then a finger squiggle through the slip while rotating on the wheel.

Bowl #16 – White slip painted over a “newspaper” stencil letter. Wet the newspaper stencil, carefully press it onto the bowl, paint the edges with slip and then cover the whole surface. Let sit for a few minutes and then carefully pull out the newspaper stencil.

Bowl #17 – White slip & blue slip in a blended ombre effect.