Gary Jackson: Fire When Ready Pottery
A Chicago potter’s somewhat slanted view of clay & play
Categories: glaze, process, production, soda-fired

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!

Categories: glaze, process

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

Categories: glaze, mugs, process, production

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!!!

 

Categories: art fair, glaze, mugs, process, production

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!

Categories: bowls, process, production, stamped

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

Categories: bowls, patterns, stamped, textures

Spent a lot of time stamping… and stamping… and stamping. Adding some texture to my latest batch of bowls… soon to have HOLES. As these will quickly be turning into berry bowls!

Categories: mugs, process, production, studio

Celebrating another MUGSHOT MONDAY with another batch of mugs. This time with some dramatic light & shadows… “thanks” again to my ongoing studio lighting dilemma!

Categories: bowls, patterns, process, stamped, stamps

After Tuesday’s “not-so-basic-bowls” class demo… I felt that the bowls might “need” just a little more embellishment. A little stamping here. A little finessing there. Cause after all… MORE IS MORE. So here are some quick pics of the bowls… and the stamps that did all of the magic!

So for now they’re back under plastic for another night…
back tomorrow to trim the bottoms!

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Categories: bowls, process, stamped, stamps, YouTube

And if you want to see how I prefer to make a SUPER bowl…
click here for a stamping process video on my YouTube Channel.
But if you want to see some teaser photos first…

Categories: mugs, porcelain, process, production, stamped

Back in the studio making my favorite thing… MORE MUGS!!!
Finally getting around to finishing up the porcelain cylinders & threw & stamped last week. So I started by trimming the stamped cylinders now that they are leatherhard. After trimming, I put them back under plastic so they don’t dry out too much.

Then I pulled handles for all of them with some more porcelain. I like to set them up with the handle-curve already established.

When the handles set-up enough to work with them, and they’re no longer squishy,
I cut out the section of the handle I want to use.
A bit of scoring & slipping for the top attachment… score both sides, slip on one.

A little smoosh.. a little smudge… and a little wiggle to get it to attach well.

After smoothing the top of the handle into the mug, I then do the same to the bottom
attachment of the handle. I like to do the top one first so I can actually “see”
the curves & proportions of the handle as I attach the bottom…
cutting, altering and changing things along the way.

A little blending… a little smoothing…
until it looks like it part of the mug, and not just slapped on the side!

Score… Slip… Attach… Smooth… Repeat…
Score… Slip… Attach… Smooth… Repeat…
Score… Slip… Attach… Smooth… Repeat…

Soon enough the batch of mugs was complete.
All cylinders stamped, trimmed and now well-handled!

Even better from the side… at least I think so…

And for now they’re under wraps for the night…
so that the moisture levels can even-out a bit before I open them up to dry!

 

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