Another beautifully clouded morning… with even more clouds rolling in as I pedaled on. So happy I had these quiet moments along the lakefront before the rain comes in today… and most likely stays through tomorrow!

FLASHBACK FRIDAY… with this little cutie!
Ryann was adorable in her little pink glasses eating out of her favorite mug! She no longer has the glasses… but hopefully still loves the mug now that she’s eight years older… and she’s still adorable!

Celebrating Spring with some more pretty flowers… just a few branches of ornamental pear blossoms in a stamped & soda-fired ikebana vase. A simple centerpiece with just a few stems. No need for the full bouquet with a stylish ikebana vase!

Last night was the first night of my new Surface Decoration Techniques class at Lillstreet. We started with introductions & overviews… and then started off with our first technique. I pulled out some thick colored slip to add some texture, pattern & color to a few basic bowls & cylinders… and hopefully some fun effects when we get to glazing these pieces!

THICK SLIP BOWL #1 –
I first added a layer of thick white slip on the interior of the bowl. I showed them a few different patterns… spirals, squiggles… wiping & smoothing it back after each one. We “ended” with a spiral in the bottom and a rib-fluted pattern around the rim.

THICK SLIP BOWL #2 –
Pretty much the same technique of Bowl #1… just with a thicker layer of slip. I felt that the rib-fluted edge wasn’t apparent enough the first time. And I like how the thicker slip made it more look more intentional.

THICK SLIP BOWL #3 –
Another layer of thick white slip, and then a chattered pattern added throughout. I uses a rounded rib, and tapped the slip by moving the rib up & down… and up & out… while the bowl was spinning. The pattern is created by the speed of the chattered tapping, the speed moving up, and the speed of the wheel’s rotation!

THICK SLIP BOWL #4 –
For this bowl we did an ombre’ blend of white & green slips. A simple blending of colors. I feel it still looks kinda plain, so I think there “might be” a little bit of carving to come on this one!!!

THICK SLIP BOWL #5 –
For this bowl, I “tried” to squirt a perfect spiral of black slip into the bowl while it was spinning. But the slip was a bit too thick and didn’t come out of the bottle smoothly…. spurt… spurt… sputter… glops!!! So then we needed to “fix” that… so I smoothed it out with a rubber rib giving it an uneven black slip surface with some clay still showing through. We liked the marble effect… but it seemed a bit wimpy. So I added a spiral dragged through at the end.

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #1 –
We’ve all seen this technique showing up on our Instagram Feed from Joe Thompson @oldforgecreations… so we decided to give it a go! Not a real success… the slip was a bit too gloppy… there were a few “chunks” in it. But when I squirted it on… and then tapped it down a bit to make the slip move… we did get a lot of “oohs & ahhs” from my students!!! Definitely not as easy as Joe makes it look… but fun!

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #2 –
We decided to try another version of the drippy slip technique. This time with two colors of slip. I tried to add a “stripe” of green slip down the side of a squirt bottle… and then add more white slip “on top” of the the green. Idea being that when squirted out, you would get more white slip with a little undercolor of green. Kinda gloppy… but not bad for our first attempts! I’m pretty sure I’ll be leaving this technique for Joe who perfected it for us!!!

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #3 –

This time I covered the exterior with thick white slip, and then dragged a rounded rib across the outside to make these horizontal ribbed grooves.

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #4 –

For this cylinder, I tried again to make a “perfect” spiral going down the outside with a squirt bottle filled with slip. But again, it sputtered & spurted. So I draged a rubber rib across it and it surprisingly made this marble-clay-like effect. Done... and so much easier that actually making colored clay and throwing with two colors in a marbled clay!

THICK SLIP CYLINDER #5 –
Because I was having a bit too much sputtering & spurting with the squeeze bottles, I added some water to them and shook them up. But maybe a bit too much water?… as it wouldn’t hold its shape & thickness any more. So when I squeezed the white on the side at the top, it just ran down and covered the exterior. So I tried adding some green, and it too ran down and covered the entire exterior. So I tried again, and again, and again… each time trying to vary the amount of slip squirting out. At some point, my layers started to give me a groovy-drippy tie-dyed look… so I stopped!

And for now they’re all in my studio under wraps.
Today I’ll open them up and do a bit of details & refining.

Clouds. Clouds. Clouds… and not a whole lot more!
Okay, maybe a colorful sliver for a few minutes… but then more CLOUDS!!!

Pretty… but not the most beautiful of morning bike rides!

GOOD NEWS! Looks like one of my students made “The Show-Off Shelf” at Lillstreet. Whoo-Hoo!!! Christine is coming in for my class tonight so she’ll be thrilled when she sees her colorful masterpieces proudly on display!… and a couple flowerpots still on the racks!

Sure, I coulda left them plain, but why would I do that?!

One of my very favorite Spring flowers. These tiny little gems seem to have taken over many yards around the neighborhood… sadly, except mine!!! I would love to have more of these scilla plants to make a blue-purple carpet in my garden… but I think I have three!!!… only THREE!

And I have no idea how they got there… but I think I can thank the squirrels!

Just a little something to brighten your rainy day! This is crazy cool… and amazing how LONG this train track must be to make this happen! A Guinness World Record!!! The amount of time & creativity it took to do this is astounding! Looks like the rest of the miniature trains, planes & locations are pretty amazing too!!!

But my real question… what happens when the melody starts to sound a little “flat” from evaporation?… how long do you think it takes top “top ’em off” and do they have a professional water glass tuner on staff???

And it looks like I’m not the only one who has a happy orchid re-blooming! This one lives in Peoria and is re-blooming for the first time… and in a BIG way!!! It looks very happy in it’s little corner there… but I’m thinking it’s also about the flowerpot!!!

Thanks for sharing your beautiful orchid with us Gerry & Rosene… which they seriously “remembered” as being a white orchid, until it re-bloomed as yellow… as it always was a yellow orchid. HA!