Something new in the works… they started as my own “need” to make some kiln fillers!
I hate nothing more than empty spaces in a kiln. And since I’m working to fill another
glaze kiln in another week (shared with Karen Patinkin), I had some spare time and
decided to make some little things and I call them… “kiln fillers”! We’ll see what becomes
of them… and if they work as I think they might… more to come!

After a little splash of clear glaze… and nice electric firing…
my niece Taylor’s handmade set of dinnerware is all done! And ready for her
to cook us all dinner and serve it up on her new dishes! Shhh… don’t tell her…
I want them to be a surprise. She doesn’t know they’re done yet…

Today I completed our exploration of basic “color theory” with my Summer Campers!
They’ve already mixed their colors in paint to create their secondary & tertiary colors.
And we ended the week with collage projects where they had to “transfer” their own
color palette onto a collage kite! Squares of colors arranged in a color gradation!

Once they all had finished their collage kites, we did one last “teambuilding” project
where they all worked together to put their color theories to work one last time for the week.
With Christian in the lead, they all worked together to create a large mural using only the three
primary colors – and a lot of blending & mixing to create their color spectrum.

Okay… sometimes it’s best not to tell me your birthday is coming…

So one of our all-time favorite Summer Campers was in camp this week.
And made the “mistake” of telling me that her birthday was Friday… today!
So I figured I just had to make her a birthday tiara out of pipe cleaners
and “force” her to wear it all day long! And she did… Happy Birthday Maya!!!

As camp was about to start this morning, I was quickly loading another bisque kiln.
Hurry… and I quickly learned that my ovals don’t pack quite as tightly as I would like.

The second layer was glazed terra cotta… my niece Taylor’s plates being fired!
Don’t panic… that groovy green color is actually low-fire clear glaze!

The third layer packed much tighter than the first. I love when there’s enough
greenware to pack the kiln tightly – and not “waste” precious kiln space.

Thanks to my friend Katie Biderbost who had some smaller mugs & pitchers
that fit in “perfectly” and helped fill the layer. Katie’s been working at Lillstreet
for years, and is now making these precious little pieces with some really
tight slip trailing. I can’t wait to see how her beautiful blue glaze breaks over
the decorations!

Once I had loaded my work, and Katie’s pieces, I had to rush off to camp. I left a layer open
on top for another studio-mate Karen Patinkin to top off with a few of her beautiful platters!

Thanks to Amazon.com… my package came today… and…
I could finally erase all of the episodes of “LOST” Season Six off my TiVO!!!
Yes, I know it’s sad… I’ve “saved” all of the episodes. But I’m still suffering
from “LOST-separation-anxiety.” And am now ready to start over from the
very beginning with Season One’s original plane crash! But for now, my “LOST”
DVD collection is complete!  4 – 8 – 15 – 16 – 23 – 42… pathetic, I know…

Also in my Amazon package…
the latest “500″ book from Lark Publishing… “500 Plates & Chargers.”
Sadly, I totally spaced out applying for this one?! Watching for their application deadlines
used to be a high priority… but somehow it fell off my radar this time?! But… luckily I have
been published in three of their other books… “500 Cups”, “500 Pitchers” and “500 Tiles”!
Check out this older blog post on “My Lark Trifecta.”

And a little guilty pleasure… also from Amazon, my favorite movie from third grade!
It’s a little short film by Albert Lamorisse called “The Red Balloon. A sentimental flick
about a lonely little French boy who is befriended by a Red Balloon! A saw it in 3rd grade
and still remember it to this day… check it out!!!

Just when I thought that this morning’s sunrise couldn’t get any better…
I received these photos from Scott Carlson this evening. They’re photos of
this morning’s sunrise as seen from his condo rooftop on Chicago’s west side.
Still stunning… even with all those buildings in the way!

Anyone else up early enough and willing to share their own sunrise photos?!

So once again, Chris and I went on a wonderful ride up to the Chicago Botanic Garden
again after camp. And it was wonderful. And literally “wonder-filled”. The weather
was incredible once again, but something strange was in the air.

As we pedaled north, we saw plenty of deer early on… usually we see more on the way back.
We also saw a bit of roadkill, or should I saw “bike-kill”?… skunk killed by bike… really?!
We’ve never seen that before. Plus we saw a dead raccoon on the road… seen that one.
But as we went further north, we saw two Forest Preserve Sheriffs kind of “hanging out”
on the bridge overpass at Caldwell. Looking around, but doing a bunch of nothing. Again…
never seen that before.

We made it to the Botanic Garden which was beautiful as always. And as we sat back to relax
for a brief moment before turning around and heading back, I was once again struck by the
beauty of the silvery Aspen leaves against the deep blue sky.

And then we started pedaling back. When he got just south of New Trier High School, the
bike trail was blocked off by three, yes count them three, Forest Preserve police cars.
Flashing lights and all… one “cop” in each. They wouldn’t let us pass and continue on the
bike trail. We were pleasant, but pretended “we weren’t from these parts” and didn’t know
how to take the roads back to our cars and therefore had to continue on the trail. They didn’t
buy it. But they did say that would only be about 10 minutes. What?… how can you tell?!
If something is “going on” inside the woods, how do they know it will be done in 10 minutes?!
So we decided to go up to Winnetka Road and try another smaller bike trail entrance that
connects to the main trail pretty quickly. That entrance to the path wasn’t blocked off -
so were pretty pleased with ourselves. But shortly, down the path, and around another curve,
we saw this… something else we have never seen before…

One of the “cops” at this blockade was one of the original two who we passed earlier at
the Caldwell overpass. As well as being one of the three original cars in the first blockade.
He made us stop again… but then told us we could go through if we walked around the cars.
What?… why block the trail if it’s okay for us to continue on? And what happened to that
10 minutes they talked about?! On the other side of the cars, we ran into a group of bikers
& joggers who had been stopped. They were confused as to why they had been stopped -
and how we got through. As we were talking with them, we heard a shot in the woods.
Yep, another thing we’ve never experienced before on this ride. A shot? Or at least a loud
“clap” sound that shocked everyone. I joked about needing to wear my “blaze orange”
bike jersey next time. And then we pedaled on as WE had been “cleared” by the cop.

While riding, we kept trying to analyze what all of that was about. But to no avail.
And then when we were waiting to cross Glenview Road – a Glenview ambulance turned
the corner with siren blaring towards the direction of “the incident.” Coincidence?!

We still have no idea what was going on… but it sure was something!
We saw a lot of deer again today, but honestly… this was a lot more exciting!

So we moved on from our Monday clay project and on to some basic color theory.
Since I have two different classes this week (morning & afternoon), I’m trying to
cover the same topics but in slightly different ways with different projects!

We started our discussion about color theory with primary, secondary and even
tertiary colors. Each kid then chose two primary colors and did a quick mix & match
to paint their own “color wheel” for their chosen colors. Seven different colors with a
nice gradation from color #1 to color #2. Today we continued our project on color
theory projects to reinforce what they’ve learned.

The morning class is now working on their color theory “collages.” They spent today
cutting out small squares from magazines that represent each of their seven colors.
Tomorrow, unbeknownst to the kids, they will take these squares and carefully collage
them in a smooth gradation on the face of the handmade kites they made yesterday!

The afternoon class continued their color theory project with abstract paintings.
Each of them followed my “cryptic instructions” to draw the abstract design. They
then carefully painted in all of the segments suing their seven colors. Here’s the catch…
each and every segment of the abstract had to be painted separately, and no two
adjacent segments could be the same color!

Tomorrow the morning class will continue the collaging & finishing their kites.
The afternoon class will “kinda continue” their color theory with some groovy tie-dye!
Not everyone remembered to bring in their shirts to tie-dye today… so I had to “label”
a couple of them to remind them… no shirt no tie-dye!