Spent a little time in the studio this afternoon “finishing up” some of my recent class demo pieces. This was a request from my Intermediate Class to make a large two-part stacked piece. Kelly requested a planter… but I kinda think this landed somewhere “between” planter & vase?! I stuck with planter… and added drainage holes and threw a water trip tray today to go with it.

Last week in my SURFACE DECORATIONS class, I showed my students how to use sprigs to decorate their bowls. Basically, a sprig is the “opposite” of a stamp… where you press clay into these handmade “molds”… pop them out… and then score & slip them onto the bowls. So sprigs “stick out”… whereas my usual stamping in more “pressed in.” Kinda fun… we’ll see how this looks after some glaze plays with the new textured surface!

Did some late-night studio work this evening… adding some underglaze accents to this latest batch of terra cotta flower pots. Just gotta wipe off the surface… leaving the underglaze only in the stamps, and then a bit of clear liner glaze! Hoping to get these all done & ready for next weekend’s PLANTS & POTTERY POP-UP!!!

After picking-up my new clay at Continental Clay…
I also took a little side trip to a friend’s pottery studio.
Lucky for me, she’s not a big fan of reclaiming her own clay?!
So I loaded several bags of dried porcelain scraps into my car
before heading home. WHOO-HOO!!!

Just break it up… add water… soak.. a little labor… FREE CLAY!!!

During the St. Croix Pottery Tour, it was great to see some beautiful “sangam” pottery by Minsoo Yuh. We tried this technique last year in my Surface Decorations class… and great to see how it’s really done by a master! Much better detail & smoothness than when we tried it in class. Ha!!!

Basically, you stamp patterns all over your clay. Then add a layer of thick slip over everything and let it dry to leatherhard. Then you carefully “shave off” the top layer of slip to reveal the clay body surface and the “now-slip-filled” stamped impressions.

This week in my SURFACE DECORATIONS class, we tackled a couple different techniques for a fun tie-dyed effect… you all know I’m a kinda big fan of tie-dye!!!

So we started with a “squiggly” version… where I took a large plat platter, painted a layer of thick slip on top, and then dribbled some blobs of colored underglazes on top of it. Not really sure how this will work… but I’m always ready to try something new… it’s just clay, right?!

And then I took a plastic rib with a scalloped edge… a cake decorating tool… and started to squiggle through the layers of slip & underglazes to blend, blur & texture the plate. In hindsight, I kinda wish the plastic rib were either softer or thinner… as it was a bit tough to get some good squiggle up by the curve of the rim.

So here it is so far… I’m going to let it dry slowly and trim the bottom when it gets leatherhard. Still contemplating if it might “need” a bit of stamped texture somewhere?! And if so… where???

After bisque firing, I’m assumiong I’ll probably just sue some clear glaze to make the colors “pop” and give it all some shine. The downside might be… that I’m not fully confident that the colors of the underglazes will actually “survive” the high-fire cone 10 temperatures. But we’ll find out soon enough…

Not quite traditional “tie-dye”…. but pretty fun & groovy nonetheless!

Nothing better on a damp & rainy day… than to play in the studio, getting ready to stamp some more flower pots… and binge watching the start of THE GREAT POTTERY THROW DOWN on HBOMax. Giddy-up!!!

After Tuesday’s “bowls-on-purpose” class demo, I kinda felt they still needed a little somethin’-somethin’!!! So today I did a bit of stamping, detailing & trimming! Making these bowls even more “not-so-basic”!!!

Last week in one of my pottery classes, we tackled some surface decoration using thick white slip for textures & patterns. Sure, I could have used colored slip… but I’m more intrigued by how the glazes might play well with these cool textures & grooves!

One of the “benefits” of being stuck in my studio all day yesterday while firing the soda kiln… is being able to get a lot of side odd projects done. Like turning out my latest batch of reclaimed clay… now sitting on a large plaster bat drying up until it’s good to wedge up and start over with some new “free” clay!!!