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.

My class demo bowls have made it out of the bisque kiln…
so now it looks like I have a lot of glazing to do!!!

Another productive afternoon in the studio. More cylinders to make more mugs.
You know how I like to start my “Home For The Holidays” Home Show with over 100 mugs. When these are finished, I should be getting pretty close. And since I LOVE making mugs… who says I need to stop at a hundred???

And mark your calendars now… always the weekend BEFORE Thanksgiving!!!

“MY HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS” HOME SHOW
Saturday, November 21st & Sunday, November 22nd : 10:00am-6:00pm both days.

Playing with porcelain and enjoying the clean contrasts & shadows of the stamping.
Trimming & handles coming soon…

So when we did the basic bowls demo last week for my class, I also explained to them the benefit of throwing on a plastic bat. Better pots. More “round” bowls. Less squishing. No need to “pick up” a freshly thrown bowl. Easier to move around on the bat. Who knew that they would take my advice to heart?! They got their act together and ordered well over 50 plastic bats online!!! Most of them now have their own bats to work with… and such a great green color. Mine are basic boring brown. Must say I’m kinda jealous!!!

Thank you Katie for coordinating the class order.
Now I can’t wait to see what they all make on their new bats!!!

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.

The hats are made, but still need to be painted, glazed & fired
before their “Ghoulish” debut this Saturday at ART IN THE BARN…
and that’s just the half of it.

Wish I could “cast a spell” to get them done faster…
yeah, them AND the other half I’m still making too!!!

Oh yeah, and did I mention that’s it’s a “Limited Edition” of forty?!
That means I still have a LOT of painting & glazing to do!!!

As my latest bisque kiln continues to cool…
I thought I would get a start on all of the glazing that I need to get done!
And why not start with my favorite?… MUGS!!! Okay, so there’s a few.