After several hours of painting with underglazes, the textured hats are done & ready for a layer of clear glaze to finish them off. Then into a kiln later… hoping to get them cooled off before I bring them out to Barrington this weekend for ART IN THE BARN.

So like I said… I’ve been busy-BUSY!!! I typically make a Limited Edition of forty Ghouls each year for ART IN THE BARN. But why not make my job harder than usual?… and so decide to make a two-parter Ghoul this year?! Yes, my new Ghoul will come with a hat. I mean, who doesn’t like a Ghoul who can accessorize?! Yet at the same time… now I need to make forty hats AND forty Ghouls! That’s EIGHTY pieces instead of the usual forty!!! Yikes! At least I finished assembling the hats over the weekend… which gave me a bit more time to focus on the Ghouls!

So it’s been a VERY busy past couple days… knowing that I’ve got to get my new Halloween Ghouls done by this weekend! I’ve spent a LOT of time in the studio over the weekend!!! So I’ve been handbuilding… adding parts & pieces to create the characters… and texturing as much as I can! And it’s so much easier with great textured handrollers from MKM Pottery Tools.

Well, here they are… forty terra cotta cylinders waiting to be trimmed… and then GHOUL-ized!!! I have a plan, I have a doodle… but I’ll feel much better after I make the first new Ghoul to make sure it lives up to my vision.

And just to make my job harder, this year I’m going for another two-parter! Yep, twice as many pieces to make… forty of this & forty of that… and I have about a week to get them all done!!! YIKES!!!

So here they are… the beginnings of this year’s new Ghoul. The first batch… and the fresh batch still on the bats. I’m making another “limited edition” of forty Ghouls for ART IN THE BARN on September 23rd & 24th. Starting to feel the pressure…

So… just in case you’ve been wondering… YES, the new addition to “The Ghoul Collection” for this year has been started!!! And they all started with just a ball of terra cotta clay! In fact, I started throwing the base forms last Saturday night after a long day at ART IN THE GARDEN… and finished throwing them early Monday morning. So you might say I got a bit of a “head-start” compared to my usual procrastination techniques! But we all know… I work best with a deadline!!! HA!!!

Well, after all of the process posts… it’s finally time to show off our birdhouse collaborations for ART IN THE GARDEN. And I will say, I think this might be my favorite “Cory Collaboration” of all time!!! We’ve generally done separate parts & pieces that then go together or assemble later. This is the first time that we’ve actually “worked” on the exact same pieces passing them off part way through the process. I built all of the textured birdhouse.. and then Cory added on her pieces of whimsy!!! And I think that this “tighter” collaboration has really paid off. I can’t wait for people to see them this weekend at ART IN THE GARDEN. There are only ten of them… first come, first served… and sorry, no dibs ahead of time!

For more info – https://www.grassrootsartfair.com/

We’re SO close to the end of these collaboration birdhouses!!! Cory has added some clear glaze… yes, green now turns clear in the kiln. The roofs are glazed for weather protection… as well as some of the whimsical add-ons just to make them even more fun!!! Beautifully done Cory.

Oh great… now I want mint chocolate chip ice cream!!!

What a difference the underglaze wash makes, right?! The way Cory leaves it in all of the recesses just makes all of the textures & colors really POP!!! These birdhouses are getting SO close to being done. Which is good… they need to be done by Saturday morning when the show starts at 10:00am. So who knows?… they might still be warm from the kiln???

So it looks like Cory McCrory has been extra busy in her studio doing some final touches & details on our collaboration birdhouses for his weekend’s ART IN THE GARDEN. It’s these crazy cool details that are just killin’ it… some underglaze here… a dab of color there!!! Can’t wait to see them in person this weekend!