Tonight I stamped the plate I made for my class demo the other night.
Sure, you could leave the flange plain & unadorned… but what fun would that be?!!!

I love the “antiqued” look & subdued colors these got from the cone 10 firing.
A simple underglaze wash inside the textures really made them pop! So now
they’re all ready to go… and are all coming with me to Hinsdale this weekend!

It’s amazing what a difference a little underglaze was can make!
Painted on all over, then the top surfaces are gently wiped off.
All of the textures & patterns pop-out and become even more dramatic!

One more firing, this time cone 10…. and these little treasures should be ready
just in time for the Hinsdale Fine Art Festival. Now just a couple weeks away…

Back in the studio… and the texture fun continues…

After I finished up my class demo pieces, it was time for some Texture Fun!!!
So I pulled out my texture tool collection and started making patterns…
which then started turning into a whole new project. We’ll see what develops…

For a very long time, on that long list of things to do…
I finally got around to making & firing some textured soda slip test tiles.
I acquired quite a few slips from my potter-friend Emily Murphy when she moved to
Minneapolis. And yet I tend to go back to the old “tried & true.” Maybe because I wasn’t
sure how all of the new slips would “react” in the soda firing atmosphere. So I made test
tiles with one of my favorite handmade rolling pins, painted on some slip and fired them
in the kiln. Of course, I also had to make little “props” to hold them vertical in the kiln.

I’m excited to have new samples of the slips – all with a good amount of flashing
to show the range of colors & effects you can get in the soda kiln.

I’ve been planning in doing this forever… good intentions… but something else
always seems to come up. Until tonight. I finally got to it.

One of the best ways to get some good color in the soda kiln is with special slips
designed to “flash” in the soda kiln atmosphere. And it seems like I always fall back
onto my “favorites” that I use all the time. But when you look in my studio, I have
quite an assortment of slips. Many of them thanks to Emily Murphy who bequeathed
her “stash o’slips” to me when she packed up her studio and moved to Minneapolis.

So my plans has been to make test tiles for all of the slips… using one of my own
textures and firing them in one of my kilns. So I finally loaded them in tonight up on
the top shelf. I’m hoping to get some dramatic flashing results that demonstrate how the
slip reacts. My fingers are crossed… and I’m glad that my plan finally came together!

Still working towards my next soda kiln… about 9 days away…
and I was kind of panicking thinking I may not have enough to fill the whole kiln.
So I decided to make some new textured slab vases. Great fun playing with textures.
Putting them all over the vases… part of the fun is that both sides of the vase are
different texture “pictures.” So the finished vase can be shown with one side…
and then turned around to look like a completely different vase a few days later!

Once these are dry, I’ll bisque them and do a little bit of glazing… inside & out…
and then let the soda kiln work its magic to help accentuate the textures!
I may have gotten a little out of control. And now I’m pretty sure I’ll have too much
work for the kiln! There might be a “few” pieces that don’t quite fit into the kiln…