So my glaze cart is filling up nicely. Glazed & wadded… filling half of my studio cart. Now I’ll turn the cart around and fill the other side. A full cart pretty much equals a full soda kiln… give or take a few pots here & there!

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Might be a smidge harder to glaze “in the dark”…
but the dramatic task lighting I’ve set up sure does make for some nice contrasts
when the mugs start lining up!

Painting & filling the stamped impressions with a dark tenmoku glaze, and then wiping off the high surfaces to reveal a great contrast for the stamped design. I kinda feel like The Karate Kid… glaze on, glaze off… glaze on, glaze off.

Thrown, stamped & trimmed. Just needing some handles to turn them into mugs!
So I’ve pulled my handles the traditional way and let them set-up. Now it’s a process of deciding which handle goes on each mug, and where they get attached. High? Low? Big? Small? Proportion & placement can make all the difference!

And now after a lot of scoring & slipping, I have another batch of mugs ready!
I’ll keep them under plastic overnight and then add some colored flashing slip accents tomorrow.

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Let the stamping begin!!!
Suddenly these basic porcelain bowls are not-so-basic anymore!

Lots of patterns, stamps & textures…
drying slowly on some elevated plastic grid so they dry more evenly –
hoping to avoid any warping with even airflow on both sides!

So I’ve textured the slab with my STODOLA rolling pins, and now I’m attaching them to the tops of some ovals. I’m closing it up for now, but will be cutting some holes through the textured top to make these into flower bricks!

Just finishing off a quick class demo piece… a plain bottle that needed a little somethin’-somethin’. So I made a rectangle “stencil” using pieces of wet newspaper. I placed them on the leatherhard bottle and smoothed them along the edges. Then painted some thick colored slip over the rectangular void of newspaper, and then dragged my finger through it to make some patterns.

After the slip set-up a bit, I simply peeled the newspaper away…

...and voila’… a fun patch of colored slip with textural finger lines.

So I started with some bottomless cylinders that I had already finessed into ovals. Then I added a smooth slab bottom, scored & slipped, and let them sit overnight after roughly trimming the slab with a smidge of a margin. I placed them on newspaper and under plastic. My hope was that the bottom slab might stiffen up a bit, but the rest of the cylinder would stay moist. And it worked. I also add a small tile weight inside so that there is no extra bulging or warping overnight. Not sure if there would be… but why not take the precaution just in case?

So today I came in to smooth out the bottoms for a more finished edge.
I start by cutting the bottom slab margin off with a needle tool.

Then I flip it over and do a light tapping with a paddle to compress the attachment
and create a bit of a beveled angle along the bottom edge.

More fun with a good action shot, right?

Then I take a stiff green Mud Tool plastic rib to “shave off” the excess clay that bulged out during the paddling.

And then I do some gentle smoothing & refining of the edge. Establishing a good beveled edge, as well as smoothing out the attachment so it looks like it might have been all one piece from the start.

At this point the “could be” done… but I have more plans for these ovals!!!
So they’re wrapped up overnight so I can continue working on them tomorrow after camp.
There’s got to be some texture somewhere, right???

After some time stiffening up on my plaster bat, my latest batch of reclaim clay
was finally ready to pound up last night after a “slight” bit of wedging and bagging up.
I’ll let it sit for a while longer… before I start doing a “real” wedging
and actually making work out of this FREE CLAY!!!

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