Another productive night in the studio… finishing up a batch of stamped vases by adding some colored flashing slip accents. When these are fired in the soda-kiln, the slip accents will change colors and react in cool ways to the soda atmosphere in the kiln. Fingers crossed.

For the end of this summer session, my Tuesday night pottery students have been challenged to make two matching mugs to trade on our last night of class. Of course, I’ve got to make mine too… so I threw the cylinders in class showing them how to make “matching” pieces… and then I did a bit of stamping and now adding handles! I’m making two sets… just in case something goes “wrong” along the way!!! Just hedging my bets….

There’s been so much going on these days, that it was tough to find time to finish these mugs! Spray. Re-cover. Repeat. I was so happy that I finally found time last night to get them done. Score. Slip. Attach. Repeat.

My handles start out with a wedged “carrot” of clay. I then pull them the traditional way… with a bit of water and lot of friction!

When I have the handles pulled to my desired width & thickness…
I like to flip them into a loop, stand them up to let them stiffen up
with the curve already established.

So for now they’re drying slowly under plastic. I’ll do a last-minute cleaning & smoothing of the attachments today when I take off the plastic.

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Working on another set of porcelain mugs… stamping patterns & textures into them.
So here’s the before & after shots, as well as the stamps that did all of the magic!

Mug One –

Mug Two –

Mug Three –

Mug Four –

Mug Five –

Mug Six –

Mug Seven –

Mug Eight –

Mug Nine –

Mug Ten –

Mug Eleven –

Mug Twelve –

Mug Thirteen –

Mug Fourteen –

Mug Fifteen –

Mug Sixteen –

Mug Seventeen –

Mug Eighteen –

Mug Nineteen –

Mug Twenty –

Mug Twenty-One –

So for now they’re all wrapped up under plastic… waiting at least another night until they stiffen up enough for me to start trimming the bottoms. Once trimmed, they will all start getting handles to become mugs!

 

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Okay, so the first side of my studio cart is glazed, wadded & loaded.
Time to turn around the cart and start filling the other side with work.
I’ve found that a “full cart” pretty much equals a full soda kiln.
Give or take a few pieces that I might need to glaze as I load?!

Starting off the day by gluing my wads onto the bottoms of the pieces I glazed yesterday… getting them ready for the soda kiln… as well as making room on my work table to glaze the rest of my bisque today!

And it’s not just mugs… just glazed some pitchers too!

Spent a lot of time in the studio glazing… painstakingly inlaying tenmoku glaze into the stamped impressions! And then adding a liner glaze getting ready for this weekend’s soda kiln firing! Lots of mugs… and I still have a long ways to go!!!

 

Cleaned & waxed… ready for a quick night of glazing.
Just one final glaze kiln before this weekend’s art fair in Naperville…
PRAIRIE VIEW ARTS this Friday night & all day Saturday!

Lotsa bowls… LOTSA trimming!!!
Good thing I love trimming… almost as much as I love stamping!