My bisque kiln from last night was still warmer than I would like.
So I decided to let to cool longer and dive into glazing some pieces from an earlier kiln!
I generally start by painting a lot of temoku glaze into all of the stamped impressions.

And then, once the glaze is dried, I take a moist sponge and wipe off the top surface
so that the temoku glaze stays inside the stamped impression – but not on the surface.
I love how the inlaid glaze really shows off the pattern of the stamp, instead of covering
& obliterating it with too much glaze!

But don’t think that they’re done. Oh no, I’ve got a lot of work to do on them first.
Liner glazes, sprayed accents, wadding, etc. So there’s still a lot to do… and even more
coming out of the bisque kiln tomorrow night. Not a lot of time to get everything done.
It’s my plan to load the soda kiln on Friday evening, and fire all day Saturday!

Working to fill another soda kiln…and as usual, I’m starting with my favorite: MUGS!!!
Last night I threw the cylinders, tonight I stamped them. Hopefully I will get them
trimmed, handled and slip painted tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

It was a great day today at the RAVENSWOOD ARTWALK.
A lot of great people stopped by today to see our studios… and, even better,
I was very productive through the day. I finally finished detailing these votives!
Forty-four thrown… forty-four finished.

Stamped, pierced & slip painted. Now they need to dry and find a bisque kiln.

I really like making ovals. And I think people really like them too… maybe it’s
the weird confusion of how a round wheel can throw an oval. Never quite realizing
that they are “assembled” as an oval, not “thrown” as an oval. So I start by throwing
a lot of straight-sided cylinders without bottoms.

I let them set-up a bit overnight under a sheet of plastic, and then alter them into
oval shapes by simply squishing them very gently after wiring them of the bat.

By the time I had gone though and “ovaled” each of them, the first ones were already
“leather-hard” enough for stamping. So I started the process again, working my way through
all of them. Kind of an assembly line… working across the table from left to right.

Then it was time to add the bottoms. So I throw some slabs with the same clay body.
I attach the bottoms with a good amount of scoring & slipping… smoothing them out
so the “attachment” line doesn’t show up. I want them to look seamless.

And then, to finish them off, I added a few little highlights of colored slip on some of the
stamp impressions. And since I was in a hurry to get them dried and into a kiln, I dried them
all on top of plastic grids elevated on wooden sticks so the air can circulate under & around
the pots – drying them faster and more evenly!

Once they were dry, they went into my electric bisque kiln after class on Tuesday night.
These will wait to be glazed until I fire my next soda kiln… which at this point is just one
month away! And these are the first pieces I have to fill the kiln… uh oh, I definitely need
some more production weekends like this one!!!

While packing for the art fair, I took a few minutes to take a few more pictures!
Some more soda fired textures & glazes to post & share… then show off this weekend
at “Art In The Barn” with these patterns on the sides of my textured slab vases!!!

Bowl #1… a simple serving bowl, in desperate need for some surface decoration!

Bowl #2… a little lower, a little flatter and too plain to leave alone!

It’s always so exciting to see what happened while the kiln was firing.
You glaze them and imagine one thing… sometimes they work, sometimes
they don’t, and sometimes… it’s just a wonderful surprise!!!

Load Friday. Fire Saturday. Cool Sunday. Unload Monday. Four days of fun!!!
Tonight I unloaded my kiln, packed it all up, cleaned & scraped the shelves and
shlepped it all home. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have time to actually admire my new pieces?!

And then, somewhere in the middle of the kiln, there were some other beautiful things
happening in there… especially with some newer, bright pops of color!

With just one week until my next soda kiln, I am in the final stages of building new work.
Today I was focused on these new textured slab vases. They’re setting up overnight,
and tomorrow I’ll add some colored slip accents before setting them off to dry.

You know I love making mugs.
In fact, if I could only make one form for the rest of my ceramics career,
I’m pretty sure it would be mugs!!! So today was a pretty good day…