Tonight I stamped a few flower pots. Gotta make the water dishes tomorrow.
Sure, you could get one of those plain, old terra cotta pots from Home Depot… but why?!
Your plants would love SO MUCH BETTER in a little bit fancier flower pot.
I can guarantee it.

Flower Pot #1 –

Flower Pot #2 –

Flower Pot #3 –

Flower Pot #4 –

Flower Pot #5 –

Flower Pot #6 –

Flower Pot #7 –

Flower Pot #8 –

Flower Pot #9 –

Another night. Another batch.
Stamped and waiting to be trimmed & “handled.”

And some of the stamps that did the “magic”…

Tonight I finally got around to finishing up some wall pocket vases.
Trimmed, stamped and accented with some colored slip.

It was a productive day in the studio today. A large batch of tumblers thrown & stamped. Some in soda clay, some with B-Clay. All waiting to be trimmed & painted with accents of colored slip.

Tonight I did a lot of stamping on a lot of cylinders that will become my latest batch of mugs. This batch was made with soda clay… destined for my next soda kiln firing.

So for now they’re all wrapped up for the night. Tomorrow I’ll do a lot of trimming… and hopefully add handles too!

Last night in class we discussed Nesting Bowls. We talked about sizing, fitting and different ways to make them “look” like a better set. Whether adding a repetitive detail to each bowl, a quick rim flip, a glazing detail, whatever. We looked at some examples of traditional nesting bowls and discussed ways to make them.

Like these carved-rim bowls by Whitney Smith…

And these rim-flip bowls by Maria Gabriela…

Or a slightly Moroccan flair with a set by One Clay Bead in Asheville, NC…

I even showed them some photos of my own “nesting” bowls as they were going into the bisque kiln. Sure, they  weren’t designed to be nesting, nor were they glazed or finished as nesting… but they sure looked cool going into the kiln stacked this way. I may need to consider making some nesting bowls on purpose, huh?!

And these unbelievable & unconventional sets of nesting bowls by Alleghany Meadows!
See… they don’t always have to stack the way you think they should!!!

Another batch of stamped ovals.
Thrown, oval-ed, stamped and waiting to be assembled.
This is the first time I’ve ever made them out of porcelain… I have high hopes. They’ve been a little more finicky than stoneware. Hope they make it through to the end?!!!

My favorite thing to make… MUGS.
So when I don’t quite know what to make, my default is MUGS!!!
Can’t stop myself…

Well, it’s been awhile now… and time for another VIDEO on YouTube!!!
What with the Academy Awards coming in two weeks and all…

This time I tackled a softer platter than I’m accustomed to.
I threw the platter as a demo during my Tuesday night wheelthrowing class. It sat out during class and stiffened up more than I expected. So I brought it up to my studio, sprayed it really well with water and wrapped it up. Maybe too well.

As you know, timing is everything. And I knew that I had a certain “window of opportunity” to do some stamping… otherwise it might be too dry if I put it off any longer. So I forged ahead… and it was a little sticky. Typically I like the pot to be on the softer end of the “leather-hard” spectrum. But this one may have been a smidge too soft. If you watch closely, you can see the stamp sticking a bit… and more apparent, my fingers were sticking to the clay too!

But I decided to forge ahead… knowing that it might stick too much or slump too much.
It’s just clay, right?!

Click here to go to YouTube for “Another Stamped Platter.”

Another batch of pretty porcelain trimmed & drying. Gotta love a well-trimmed foot.