The leaves are green & the birds are chirping. Adam sent me these photos of my birdhouse hanging out in his yard. Apparently no one has taken up residence yet… but it still looks great out in his garden!!! And I’m loving that colorful flash of sunlight streaming through the trees. Thanks for sharing Adam!

It’s almost here!!! The NORTHERN ILLINOIS POTTERY TOUR is this coming weekend!!! I will once again be a Guest Potter at the Sandwich location… home studio of my buddy Cory McCrory. So mark your calendar… grab your pottery-loving friends, rent a party bus, do whatever you gotta do!!! There’s going to be a lot of beautiful pottery to see this weekend. ROAD TRIP!!!

For more information…. www.northernilpotterytour.com

This morning’s arrival… a new iris has bloomed in my garden… with more flower buds coming up soon!!! Loving the dramatic contrast of colors … as well as solids vs. stripes!

After a very busy & productive weekend “trapped” in my studio… it felt great to “escape” for a quick bike ride late this afternoon. The sky was blue, the water bluer & a chilly breeze was blowing in off the lake. Fun breakaway pedaling… and I found a cool archery themed mural… right next to an archery club. Go figure.

Looks like Allison is enjoying some beautiful lilacs from her Momma’s garden… lookin’ sweet in her stamped & purple glazed vase… or is that more “aubergine”???

A week later, and my art fair booth flowers are still looking pretty good.
I think they might be enjoying life on my back porch
with the cooler nights we’ve been having.

Celebrating a little Floral Friday with some beautiful flowers that my friend Rhonda grew in her yard, took some cuttings & now displaying them in my vases all over her house! A little floral collaboration in the making!!! And that yellow peony?… c’mon already… gorgeous!!!

While playing with “slip inlay” last night in my SURFACE DECORATION class, I also did a demo for simple banded stripes with slip inlay. While trimming, I carved a few thin lines into the clay. Then filled them with slip… and a little bit more to cover them. Then, when the slip dries to leatherhard, you can trim off the top surface flush to the pot to reveal these colored bands… perfectly smooth to the surface.

In the middle of my “sanggam” class demo last night, I was shaving off the extra slip in a small bowl to reveal the inlaid stamps… and I “revealed” a little something extra!!! Looks like I found a piece of plastic bag mixed in with studio’s reclaim clay!!! ugh… the “beauty” of class reclaim?!

Last night in my SURFACE DECORATION class, we did a bit of “sanggam” on these tiles to demonstrate the Korean decorative technique. I had prepped the tiles with stamps & slip ahead of time. And then my students “shaved” away the extra slip to reveal the pattern of now “slip-filled” stamps. It was a lot of fun as the images revealed themselves with continued scraping.

Scrape more Taylor…

EVEN MORE TAYLOR!!!

That’s so much better Taylor!!!