Three little lidded boxes that I glazed for the soda kiln… whoops, what, no lids?! Guess I might “need” someone else to make a lid for these? I think I sense another fun collaboration in the making here. More to come…

Fun with circles. Concentric. Spiral. Rings.
Some in porcelain, some in soda clay.
People keep “guessing” that some of my pieces might be trivets.
Just to set the record straight… these are in fact going to be trivets!!!
Actual, legitimate hot-plate trivets!!!

After trimming the feet into the bowls, it was time to put in some drainage holes for my newest batch of berry bowls. For years I would use a small brass hole punch for the holes. But now I’ve upgraded to POWER TOOLS!!! Who doesn’t like working with a power drill in the studio?!

I like to use my MKM Decorating Disks to help mark out the holes evenly. The two-disk set gives you even-numbered spacing, or odd-numbered spacings. For more about the MKM Decorating Disk, click here.

So I place the transparent disk on top of the foot. Then put a small dot into the clay with my needle tool through the holes in the disk.Evenly spaced guides for where the drilled holes will go.

And then the power drill comes out!!!    Vrroooommmm!!!
The bowls are on the drier side of leatherhard, but definitely not bone dry.
Starting at the guide dots, I place the tip of the drill bit and spin right through!

After drilling, I let the clay dry up for a few minutes. Then I take a fairly stiff dry paintbrush and wipe off the burrs. They fall right off anf the drilled holes only need a little cleaning up. So much quicker, so much easier, so much cleaner than punching each hole by hand one at a time.

And for now they’re all drilled and drying. Still a little bit of clean-up around the edges…
and some coordinating drainage plates still to be thrown!!!

For more information & pictures, check out the October 2016 CERAMICS MONTHLY issue!
I have a one-page tutorial explaining how I use my power drill for my berry bowls.

Save

Save

Save

Productive afternoon after subbing for Lisa. A fresh batch of bowls…
stamped and waiting to get drainage holes to fulfill their destiny as berry bowls!!!

Making more handles.
Making more mugs.
Score… slip… REPEAT !!!

Another batch of mugs in the making. Always making. Always my favorite.

This afternoon I also threw a few other things…
see, I do make things other than mugs!!!

For those of you who saw the twenty balls of clay this afternoon and guessed “MUGS”… you know me too well. I realized that I’m kinda low on glazed mugs, so this batch of cylinders will soon become mugs and then be glazed, not soda-fired. Just filling inventory for the upcoming art fair season!!! And, you know how I love making mugs!!!

Twenty of “something” coming soon…  ahh, the potential!!!

What do you make when you’re at the end of a bag of clay?!
I’m not a fan of leaving partially used bags of clay all over my studio.
I’d rather finish them off… so I did last night with these two bottles.