After last night’s THROWDOWN challenge, we had only four people who made the weight restriction! Beautiful designs & careful craftsmanship. We were all so impressed by these Top Four… but even more enamored by the great shadows they were casting upon the table! Well done Taylor, Katie, Ruth & Jack!

We had some AMAZING carved bowls… now “baskets?”… last night in my LILLSTREET THROWDOWN class. The challenge was to carve away more than half of the weight with a decorative design of cut-outs & piercings… keeping the rim & footring intact. Great work by all & some some fine learning moments along the way. Some people succeeded… while others didn’t quite make the weight… and others “may have” had a few breaks & implosions along the way!

Like Jack’s bowl that started with a great geometric pattern of diamonds & triangles… but a couple broken cuts & weight restrictions forced him to go all willy-nilly breaking out more support-connectors all around. Much to all of our surprise… his bowl remained intact, standing by itself & oddly beautiful in its free-form craziness… and now the lightest bowl of the evening by far!!! HA!!!

After trimming & weighing their “now perfect-ER” bowls…
the real THROWDOWN challenge last night was revealed.
And they never saw it coming!!! HA!!!

Since I had the weight of their bowls already written down, their final challenge was to carve a decorative design of cut-outs & piercings while keeping the rim & footring intact. But the real kicker?… they had to carve away at least HALF of the trimmed bowl’s weight. A much harder challenge than many of them expected. So much fun to see how they each approached the challenge… both creatively & technically. They only had about 90-minutes… so there was not a lot of free-time for planning. And then to see how they needed to pivot when they weighed for the first time and realized they weren’t even close to half of the weight!!! Creativity, craftsmanship & time-restraints meet structural integrity!!! More to come…

Along our travels, we stopped it to see as many local artisans doing their craft. No need for “Made in China” for me!!! Much better to see creative hands at work & displaying their handiwork. So many talented artisans in Alaska!!!

Just a little Saturday carving session. This green slip ombré bowl has been under wraps for awhile… finally found some time to finish it up. Carving a detailed pattern using my favorite P1 carving tool from DiamondCore Tools.

What started out as a class demo on decorative carving… while sharing some of my favorite DiamondCore Tools… turned into this large decorative platter!!! With a thick band of white slip, carvings through the slip to reveal the clay body contrast… and little “berries” of clay on top. Sometimes deciding when to stop is the hardest part!!!

Looks like Maryanna has been listening!!! Some newly carved mugs with colored slip backgrounds… using some great carving tools from DiamondCore Tools. Good to know my mantra is stuck in a few people’s heads!!! Ha!!!

I also did a demo for my campers yesterday while they were trimming… about how much fun carving can be. Especially when I’m letting them borrow some of my DiamondCore Tools!!! Just a fun little demo cup with “fireworks” all over the sides!!!

Swirls of ombre’ blended slip…
and then some geometric sgraffito carvings.over the top.
A quick textured rim & a layer of clear glaze… voila’!!!

After last week’s demo on “thick slip” with my SURFACE DECORATION class, I’ve continued working on this platter in my studio. Now that it’s leatherhard, I decided to start carving a texture all around the flange of the platter. So much nicer with my favorite DiamondCore Tools carving tool. Crisp, clean edges every time!