After playing outside most of the day, I felt a little “uninspired” in the studio tonight. So I decided it was the perfect chance to start reclaiming a bunch of dried porcelain scraps. So I spent the night banging, pounding & pulverizing… then submerging in my reclaim bin to slake down. Feels good to get this task done, as I brought all of this dried clay home from Minnesota back in May… thanks to a potter-friend up there who doesn’t reclaim her own clay & knows that I am more than willing to put in the extra work for some FREE CLAY!!!

A little Sunday night spruce-up in my studio. I trimmed & slip-painted a few class demo pieces, did some cleaning & pulled out a LOT of reclaimed clay onto my large plaster bat. It’s going to take a couple days for this gloppy pile to dry out a bit before I can start wedging it back into usable clay. But you know it’s my favorite… FREE CLAY!!!

The perfect pottery production combo… two of my favorite studio tools in action together! Sharp trimming tools from DiamondCore Tools working along side the Giffin Grip. Smooth ribbons of clay coming right off while anchored down on the wheel & easily centered!

Time for some more stamping… using one stamp pattern for each pot. Just making each one a little different… all the while hoping the stamps line-up & don’t overlap in some crazy way when I get back around to where I started!!! Fingers crossed…

Spent part of this weekend “working” in the studio reclaiming some dried clay. Trimmings, broken pieces & some class demos that “went bad.” Smashing, crushing & pulverizing bone dry clay can be kinda fun. Then I add it to my reclaim bin with slurry & water. Let it soak & slake down… soon enough I’ll turn it out into a large plaster bat. And voila’… FREE CLAY!!!

So I trimmed this bowl when it was a little wetter than it should have been. But I was headed out of town for the Pottery Tour… so rushed it. As it was kinda soft, I left it out to dry upside down on a plastic bat. Apparently when it dried, the bottom between the footring “moved” upwards a bit as the bowl dried & shrank??? So now the bowl is bone dry… and the bottom center is higher than the footring… so it’s a “SPINNER”!!! ugh.

Really only one thing to do…

The plan was to work last night in my studio… but alas, I was “trapped” at the airport forever!!! Got home way too late. So I did a little early morning trimming… trying to move these cylinders along as quickly as possible. Surely helped out with my favorite DiamondCore Tools & Giffin Grip!!! Big plans for these later…

After the wax layer had cured & hardened, we wiped away the background with a wet sponge. If there was colored slip there, that got wiped away… anything that was “protected“ by the wax stayed in place. As they continued to wipe away with cold water, their images & patterns began to reveal themselves. And if you keep wiping more & more, you start to create two surface layers… the top one being your original layer, and the second layer a smidge lower. It’s that tactile contrast in depths that is really cool. We even used some Q-tips to get into it to create nice crisp edges. When finished, they will bisque & glaze as normal for a cool bowl either a groovy pattern… all done with Water Etching!

Last night in my studio before class… I did a little “pre-waxing” of my design to give it time to dry. The demo was going to be water etching with my SURFACE DECORATION class… and I had planned to do a little “cooking show switch-out” in mid-demo. So this was my platter before class… wax drying… and waiting for the actual water etching to begin!

Still prepping, pricing & packing!!! Trying to get everything ready for the SCHAUMBURG PRAIRIE ARTS FESTIVAL this weekend. Working in the basement finishing up these hybrid mugs… and splitting them up so I’m sure I have enough for each of my next three shows over the next three weekends!!!