Now to let them set-up for a few minutes before I start attaching them to the stamped & trimmed cylinders. I like to pull the handle and then give it a “little flip” so it stands-up by itself with the majority of the handle curve already established. I’ll cut out the portion of the handle I want to use… and recycle the rest of the clay!

Saturday night is apparently going to be MUG NIGHT!!!

Small chunks of clay, wedged and thrown into carrot shapes… getting ready for a productive night of mugs!!! You know how I LOVE making handles & mugs! No, really.

After fulfilling my BERNIE-quotient for the day…
It’s back to the studio for some trimming. Gotta take a little clay off the bottoms of these cylinders & add a nice footring so I can start turning them into mugs! Special thanks to DiamondCore Tools for making these really great trimming tools for smooth trimming, clean lines & groovy squiggles of clay as they come right off!

It’s another MUGSHOT MONDAY… and to celebrate tonight my “Mugshot Mondays” students finished their 3-week class by glazing all of their mugs. And we all know that a good glazing session begins with a good waxing session! I’m not really a “fan” of glazing… ugh… but oddly, I do LOVE WAXING the bottoms?!!!

Last night in my MUGSHOT MONDAY class, my students assembled their mugs!!! It’s just a quick three-week class all about making MUGS!!! My favorite!!!

Last week they threw cylinders, this week trimming & handles… next week glazing! Very quick & lots of mugs!!! By the end of class tonight, they were “complaining” less about making handles than when we started. So I’ll call that progress… and they were all excited when they saw how many mugs they had cranked out in just a three hour class!!!

Oversized “order” pieces out of a bisque kiln… basking in the late afternoon sun… ready for some inlaid glaze! And a tenmoku liner glaze before heading into the soda kiln!

I’ve been working lately on some oversized pieces for a special commission project. Adding some colored flashing slip accents that will change color during the soda-firing. I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never made “mugs” this large before… but it’s been kinda fun! The challenge was to make them large enough to meet the volume requirement!!! And you know how we all feel when the clay starts to shrink… “Did I make them big enough???” Fingers crossed.

Always great to see these four letters… one last kiln load fired & complete… fresh pots just in time for MY HOLIDAY HOME SHOW! It wasn’t quite cool enough to unload when I arrived, but hopefully it will be cooler after teaching class tonight!Don’t forget, you can still sign-up for a socially-distant & sanitized appointment time slots on my website.

Click here for full HOLIDAY HOME SHOW details & appointment times!

Another batch of stamped mugs finished & drying. Unfortunately these won’t be done in time for MY HOLIDAY HOME SHOW coming soon… but I am starting to wonder if we might need a mug intervention here?!!!

And there it is… a well thought-out, three-dimensional puzzle of shelves, bricks & pots!!! I always want to squeeze in as many pots as possible, but you need to leave enough air space for the soda atmosphere to move around the pots to create the magic! Lots of shelves… lots of pots… and all fingers crossed!!!