I love when I hear from blog readers…. and hear their stories of how my little blog,
or my pottery, has somehow impacted their lives. Here’s one such case…

Your website was my inspiration.  Don’t know how I happened on to it
but my students were fired up after I presented the lesson.  I teach
high school art at Freedom High School in South Riding, Virginia.
I have 120 – Art 1 students; mostly freshmen.  First we made stamps
and then we made plates (slump mold into plastic picnic plates).
Then we used the stamps to imprint the plates.  The project was a very
fun success.  Thanks so much for sharing your ideas.     – Barbara

I just posted my SECOND pottery video on YouTube!!! Whoo-hoo!!!
And let me just say for the record, this one went a LOT faster in iMovie… and I remembered to shoot the footage in landscape mode so it fills the screen this time!

Click here for the YouTube video : Bowl Stamping by Gary Jackson.

Today I continued working on my latest batch of flower pots. I trimmed all of the bottoms on the flower pots… AND threw all of the drip plates to go with them! And again, by the time I finished throwing the last one, the first ones were ready for fluting, stamping & detailing. I love when a plan comes together.

If all goes well, I hope to finish up the flower pots by drilling drainage holes and then letting them dry. As for these drip plates, they all need to be trimmed with a good “deep” foot. When this batch is done, I’m hoping to make another batch… a little shorter & wider! Similar, yet different. Might be cute as a twosome of flower pots?!!!

I think it might have been the hint of Spring yesterday that “inspired” me to make flower pots. So I spent the day in the studio throwing tall flower pots. I decided to make them in two pieces, instead of the attached water drip plate version. Today I focused on the flower pots… the drip plates will be another day.

It was an extra productive day today… as I not only threw all of the pots, but I also had the time to stamped them all as well. It was great how quickly they were drying. When I finished throwing the last one, the first ones were getting stiff along the top edge – perfect for stamping. Talk about a pottery assemble line!!!

Twelve Tumblers. Made of Mud. Not that I had to explain…

I’ve had a LOT of bowls under wraps waiting to get to the leatherhard stage.
Today was the day for detailing.
Stamping… stamping… attachments… and even more stamping!

Bowl #1 –

Bowl #2 –

Bowl #3 –

Bowl #4 –

Bowl #5 –

Bowl #6 –

Bowl #7 –

Bowl #8 –

Bowl #9 –

Bowl #10 –

Bowl #11 –

Bowl #12 –

And here’s a few of the stamps that did all the work today…

And now the bowls are all stamped & detailed… and waiting to be trimmed.

As they dried up a bit more… I tackled each one and trimmed the bottoms of them all. So now they’re all drying and preparing for their upcoming bisque firing!

And therefore, a bunch of tiny pots needed a lot of tiny stamps!

Tuesday night’s demos…
Fluted bowl. Lidded jars. Flower pot. Mini vase.
Stamped. Trimmed. Detailed. Done… Drying!

This morning I stamped & stamped & stamped… and stamped some more.
Round & round I went stamping the inner rings AND the outer rings!

Now they’re all stamped and laid out on a plastic grid to help them dry more evenly… and hopefully prevent them from warping. The idea is that they can dry from both sides at the same time – hence the lack of warping!

Okay, you’ve asked for it… many times. And I just kept putting it off.

Well, today I FINALLY tackled my first stamping demo video.
While I’m no Steven Spielberg, but I’m fairly pleased for my first attempt.
And I’m pretty sure the next one will be better… or at least shot in a horizontal format?!
Let me know what you think.

Click here to watch my VERY FIRST demo video!!!… which is now also on YouTube!!!