Now I’ve got to say how much I LOVE my pegboard… always have, always will…
but methinks it might be time for a big cleaning to kick-off the New Year.

Is there such a thing as too many pottery tools?!

Christmas seems to have come a bit early with a new set of pottery tools by Diamond Core Tools. I can’t wait to get back into the studio after the holidays to really give them all a test drive! I love my first group of tools… so I have HIGH expectations for these ones too! They’re the sharpest & cleanest carving tools I’ve ever tried!! The perfect Christmas gift for any potter or ceramic artist.

Click here to go to their website for a wide selection of carving tools…
as well as other grinding, smoothing, and finishing tools.

Seven Days & Seven Photos in black & white of your everyday life.
No explanation, no people. Challenge a friend to join everyday.

Day 3 of 7.
I was challenged by my friends Barb Duro & Pammy Walden.
Today I challenge Kelly Green Krenz.

Spinning. Trimming. Make my feet look so much better!
Gotta love that Giffin Grip!

So many stamps, so little time…
and never enough pots to use them all.
This is less than a third of my stamp collection.

Carving some leaf patterns through white slip to reveal the darker clay color… and using these great new Zebra Carving Tools by DiamondCore Tools. They seem a LOT sharper and give a much cleaner line! Loving them!!! Plus, the foam grippy thing for comfy holding, and the fact that you can pivot and change the angle of the blade. Genius!

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So I subbed this morning for Lisa’s advanced class. At their request, we worked on lidded oval casseroles as they had seen my Beginners working on theirs here on Facebook. After the oval demo, some of them were carving & adding surface decorations. I ran upstairs to grab my new Zebra Carving Tools from my studio. They loved them too! As you can see here by the little leaves Deborah was carving on the side of her porcelain jar.

And the sketch that started it all…

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Today I finished up my latest batch of miniature vases. Some bud vases with proportionately small stamped details. So today I trimmed the bottoms of them using one of my all-time favorite tools… my Giffin Grip!!!

And yes, even the mini’s are always hand signed!

And then I added some colored flashing slips for colors that will become more vibrant & dynamic during the soda-firing atmosphere.

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I was getting ready to paint some colored flashing slip accents on another batch of mugs. But every time I do this, I wish I could see better where I’ve painted. This particular slip color is just too close to the color of my clay body. Hard to keep track of where you’ve already been!

So I finally did it… I added some food coloring into my bucket of slip. The plan is to tint the slip so it shows up better… all the while knowing that the food coloring will burn out during firing. Cool trick, huh?

So I squeezed a few drops of yellow food coloring into my bucket of Smooth Orange Flashing Slip… and if you wait a few minutes before stirring, you get this really groovy pattern as the food coloring spreads. You kinda just want to stand there and watch!!!

Eventually I had to get back to work… so I stirred it up and started painting the slip accents on some mugs. I like to paint the top section as well as a center detail on each stamp. Since I only had yellow food coloring, the color change was not too dramatic. But it did give the slip a bit of a pale yellow tint so it was easier to see what I had painted and what I hadn’t as I was rotating the mug.