With a gray & gloomy start to the day… instead of biking, here’s some “sunrise stamping” to kick-off my morning. One handmade clay stamp… pressed in over & over & over again. Racing a deadline to get these done… seems I work best under pressure?! HA!!!

Cranking out a few more bowls before teaching class tonight. Gotta cover them with plastic so I can do more to them tomorrow. I have some big plans for these ones!!!

Doing a little bit of trimming quickly before teaching tonight. Love when the ribbons come flying off cleanly & quickly… especially when working with my DiamondCore Tools & Giffin Grip. The perfect combo for some quick trimming fun!!!

Packed tight from top to bottom, as well as the three shelves deep. It’s a lot of pots & mini tiles trying to utilize as much surface space as possible… trying to get the most out of every soda kiln firing!

Backing it up a couple days… to Friday when I finally finished my glazing & wadding, and took my pots down to the kiln room to start loading the soda kiln. Since my studio is on the second floor of Lillstreet, and the soda kiln is on the first floor… my pots need to travel downstairs in the rickety freight elevator. So I’ve learned to use some masking tape as “seat belts” to keep everything place during the journey.

Sadly, not quite everything fit into the kiln last night as I loaded into the wee-hours of the morning. As usual, I went through the mental waves of “I don’t have enough… I have way too much… I’m a gonna need to glaze more… this is never gonna fit… what am I doing… I think I need chocolate… still a lot of pots… oh, I think it’s going to be close… can I squeeze just a few more in?”

Well, the answer was NO. So it looks like I have a few leftovers… a nice start on building work for my next soda kiln, right???

Wiping off the top surface… to reveal a now-filled-in stamped pattern. Remember, these are all going into the soda kiln… so I don’t really need to glaze the outside of the pots. I’ll do a liner glaze inside… but leave the exterior for the soda magic to do its tricks!!!

Working on the glaze inlay first… filling the stamped impressions with some tenmoku glaze. And then I will be wiping off the top surface to clean it off… leaving the glaze only in the patterns!

Still glazing… this time I’m on the pots that came out of yesterday’s bisque kiln. Cute little oval vases with a fun strappy handles to help separate the flowers. And if one handle is cute… maybe two handles are even cuter?!!! Larger version with two handles & textured panels on each side!

Moving right along! Filling the stamps with glaze & then wiping off the top surface with a wet sponge. It leaves the dark tenmoku glaze inside the stamp to really make the texture pop! Then a quick liner glaze with the same tenmoku… clean the edges with a wet sponge… and we’re almost done!!!