Same bowls, different angle… a view from above!
I’m kinda diggin’ the new stamped-inside look with the fluted rims! So far, so good…

Perfect timing… I went back into the studio today hoping to stamp the bowls I threw yesterday.
Luckily for me, they were at just the right “stiffness” for some good stamping! So I did..

Bowl #1 : before, during & after…

Bowl #2 : before, during & after…

Bowl #3 : before, during & after…

Bowl #4 : before, during & after…

Bowl #5 : before, during & after…

Bowl #6 : before, during & after…

Bowl #7 : before, during & after…

And the tools of the trade… my banding wheel, a couple of my handmade stamps,
a needle tool, bamboo skewer, chopstick & and a dowel rod. That’s it… voila’.

With “Empty Bowls” in full swing downstairs, I opted to be productive upstairs in my studio.
I ran downstairs to see what all the commotion was about… and it was great to see hundreds
of bowls all over the place & plenty of customers picking them up and donating to the cause!
I especially liked when I saw people carrying one of my bowls as their final choice! After all,
there were a dozen of my donated bowls to choose from!

Back upstairs, I started throwing some new pieces. Having received my “acceptance” letter
today for the Schaumburg Prairie Fine Arts Festival on Memorial Day Weekend, I thought I
better start making more flower pots for the Spring art fair selection! So I threw some more
traditional-style flower pots with the water dish attached.

What to do next?… well, there’s never enough bowls, right? So I decided to throw a batch
of bowls with B-Clay. Plan being that I will be ready for another soda kiln fairly soon,
and B-Clay turns out really nice in the back stack of the kiln… where most other clays
turn out “dry” after soda firing.

With my tables filling up quickly with freshly thrown pots, I had to make some room.
Luckily, the new batch of kitchen utensil crocks was already stamped and ready to be
trimmed. So I finished them off… and added decorative slip to a couple of them.

By the time I finished trimming the utensil crocks,
and made another trip downstairs to check out more “Empty Bowls”…
the new flowerpots were already stiff enough to start stamping! Giddy-up!

First with a single stamp pressed repetitively around the sides of the pot.
Then a small divot added around the rim to help with spacing.

With the proper spacing “indicators”… it is then pretty easy to “flute” the rim
all the way around. Consistently pressing the wet clay – enough to move the shape,
but not enough to squish or smoosh the shape of the pot… trying to avoid
an “ovalled-by-accident” flower pot!

After a few stamps… the new flower pots are decorated and ready to stiffen up to
leather-hard. They are now covered with plastic, as are the bowls. Tomorrow I plan to
head back to stamp the bowls. Maybe they’ll all be ready to trim on the next couple days.
And then I can make more!!!

I love to get comments from “fans” on my blog.
It reminds me that people are really out there reading it… and that it’s not just me
rambling on here for no reason. And then, when I actually find out that my
ramblings have actually “inspired” someone, that’s even better!!! And here’s one!

So I’ve gotten a few comments over the past few weeks from Sam Brown. A potter
out in the middle of Nevada who has been feeling a little uninspired… although
challenged with a wonderful project! She has been working on a making two hundred
& fifty bowls. 250! That’s a LOT of bowls! Here are a few of Sam’s early bowls…

And then she found my blog… and realized how much fun stamped textures can be!
We’ve “chatted” a few times through the blog and she finally sent me some pictures
of her newly “inspired” pieces. I love the new direction she’s going. And I hope that
I’ve been able to put a little “jump-start” into the final stretch of her 250 bowls!

Here’s a “new, improved & inspired” stack of Sam’s new bowls!!

Plus, she also sent me a few other pictures of her paintings and basket-weaving.
I was intrigued by her combination of clay & basketry! Keep up the good work Sam!!!

After yesterday’s throwing marathon, today had to be the stamping marathon!
Shucks, huh?… good thing I love stamping!

Although my pots were all still a little wetter that I would like them to be,
a little “strategic drying” really payed off. A little bit of fan. Some rotating.
A lot of waiting… and some trimming of older pots & another batch of tiles…
and I finally got to stamp all of the pots I made yesterday. Okay, so they were
still a little squishier than I would normally like… but it was fun to see the
transformation from “plain” to textured. So much better now…

Coming soon… a LOT of trimming and handles for the mugs!

Last night in class, in between the sweets, we talked about surface decoration
and how my students can turn their own “plain” pots into very special pots!!!
We talked about trying a bunch of techniques, finding the one they love the
most – and then exploiting i doing as much as they can with it. So during class,
I started each of the demo bowls, but quickly found out there was not going to be
enough time to finish the bowls during class. So I finished them tonight in the
studio. And now they’re drying overnight. Tomorrow I’ll clean them up a bit,
and brush off all of the little burrs & crumbles on the pots!

First I did a quick demo on basic stamping… my favorite which they expected…

And then we talked more about slip and how you can put it on with a more
“painterly” technique. So I put on a layer of white slip, and then did some freehand
swirls with green slip. I hope my students liked it… when I came back to it tonight
I realized that I didn’t like it all that much. So I carved through it tonight.
Still not sure if I like it any better than just the slip?! We’ll see…

Then we moved on to carving, and we discussed the work of my friend Amy Higgason.
She stopped by last session for a class demo, and some of my students were there for
that. Unfortunately, Amy wasn’t in town last night – so I had to do my best to attempt
to carve the pot… in something slightly similar to Amy’s beautiful style. One of Amy’s
“disciples” from her demo last session was there as well… and Pam was excited to show
my class one of her pieces that she was currently carving ala Amy Higgason!!!

The next bowl was carved again.. and then we added sprigs. Another Amy trick!
Amy does this incredible work, and I hope she doesn’t mind that I tried to emulate
her style for the benefit of my class. I know they LOVED seeing the demo again!
Plus, one of my concave stamps worked perfectly as a sprig mold.

One more bowl… what to do?… what to do?…
So the last bowl is surprisingly plain & smooth on the outside… let’s work inside!

So I covered the inside of the bowl I covered with a layer of black slip. And then began
a discussion of sgraffito with my class. I started to carve through, but only did a couple
swipes – before I realized that I needed to focus a bit more on my own… and my students
needed to get back to their own bowl making!!!

More bowls. More stamping. More fluted rims… and this time, in very close detail!
So much so, that if you look closely, you can see my fingerprints!

Yes… in that order.
Generally that’s the sequence I like to do it in.

I stamp my pots when the clay is considered “wet” leather-hard.
No longer sticky, no longer squishy. Yet still moist enough for a good impression.
Too wet and stamps stick, the shape gets all warpy and it’s no fun.
Too dry and the stamp impressions aren’t deep enough and the pot can crack.
Okay, this time they were still a bit squishy… but I digress…
After I stamp the last pot in the batch, the first pot is typically ready to be trimmed.
So I trim them all, and if they are going to be soda-fired, I add some colored slip accents.
Then I set them aside so they can dry… and that’s where we’re at as of tonight!

So I spent tonight at the studio stamping pots… okay, squishy pots.
I was kind of in a hurry and wanted to get them all stamped tonight.
For some reason?! Not sure why… I could have done them tomorrow?

Typically I stamp when the pots are a “damp” leatherhard. But since these
were some of the pots I threw yesterday, they were wetter than I would have liked.
So I unwrapped them, let them sit out for a little while and then stamped them
as they slowly stiffened up a bit. But I couldn’t wait.

So instead, I stamped very cautiously!!!