Tonight was putting some final touches on my latest batch of mugs.
I made sure things were smooth, handles well-attached and then I added
some accents of colored slip to finish them off. A quick band of color around
the top portion, then some small dabs of colored slip in each stamp.

So now they’re ready to dry and then wait for my next bisque firing.
These mugs are destined for the soda kiln. In that final cone 10 firing, the soda
atmosphere in the kiln will make these colored slips a lot brighter… hopefully
with some beautiful flashing around the mugs. You never know what you’re going
to get when you’re soda firing. That’s part of the fun…

Timing is everything. I frequently tell my students that it is one of the hardest parts
of the entire pottery process. Trying to catch your pieces at the right stage of drying
so that you can effectively stamp, alter, trim, slip, whatever. Well, today was that day!

Not only did I have a table full of pots to stamp, but I also had some new stamps
fresh out of a bisque kiln. Remember a few weeks back when I tried a new method
of making stamps? Well now that they’re bisqued, I can finally use them on pots.
So here are the first three cylinders that I stamped with them. The jury’s still out…
not sure if I like them, not quite as “clean” as I would like, and I need to work them
into my own style if I’m going to make more of them. We’ll see…  it’s all part of the
“learning curve” when trying new things. Some times they work. Sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes they just need some more time to “percolate” in your head!

I did a few with the new stamps, but had a LOT of cylinders to be stamped. So I set forth &
stamped all day long. Cylinders for mugs, and taller cylinders that will become tumblers.

Once they were all stamped, they were then also ready to be trimmed.
So I started trimming them and putting them back under plastic to keep them moist
enough overnight. Tomorrow I need to add the handles to make them mugs!
Again… timing is everything!

It was a productive evening in the studio.
Throwing cylinders and hoping a new holiday ornament design might come my way.
It didn’t come fast enough… so I just kept making more & more cylinders!!!

When in doubt, make more mugs & tumblers… right???

When you’ve got twenty cylinders stamped, trimmed and at the perfect leather-hard state,
you’ve got to start attaching handles quick before the cylinders dry out. So I start by
wedging my clay, making sure it is the same clay as the cylinders themselves. Then I cut
the wedged clay up into smaller pieces and pound them against the table to create these
little “carrot” shapes.

Then I pick one up from the fat end at pull handles the traditional way. Basically by dragging
a wet hand down the “carrot” tube from top to bottom. The slippery friction makes the clay
stretch. By switching around your hand positions, you can create handles of different shapes
and widths. When I get mine to the right size & shape, I quickly give ’em a flip and loop ’em
over. They sit this way for a few minutes so that the clay can stiffen up a bit. If you try to attach
them when they are too wet, the handles don’t hold their shape… they get all mushy looking.

When they are ready, I cut off the portion for the handle that I need to attach to the mug
cylinder. Each one is then scored & slipped, and carefully attached to the cylinders.
Paying close attention to the placement & size of each handle and how they “fit” to the
cylinder itself. As I finish each handle, I put the mugs back on my plastic ware boards,
give them a quick spray of water and then wrap them up again overnight. I like to keep
them wrapped in the hopes that the moisture levels between the cylinder and the handle
might even out a bit so they can dry & shrink more evenly later.

Today, while I was attaching my handles, I was also watching this informative DVD of
Tara Wilson as she was demonstrating at the 2009 NCECA Conference. She makes these
wonderful forms, very clean, very smooth, very voluptuous. She does a lot of darting &
altering of her thrown forms, and then fires them in a wood fired kiln to create wonderful
flashing surfaces & finishes. Always fun to watch someone else show how they do
their work… as I continue to add my handles… again… and again… and again…

All class demo bowls trimmed & unwrapped.
All mug cylinders trimmed & wrapped.
Tomorrow it’s got to be handles, handles, handles!!!

The bowls from Tuesday night’s class are now up in my studio. And a few of them
“needed” a little more work. A little stamping… a little detailing… a little refining.

Another bowl fine in its simplicity… but even better after a ring of stamping!

During class, we reshaped this split-rim bowl into a clover. Sure. Cute enough.
But with a couple little balls of clay to cover the pinch marks and a line of stamping
to help accentuate the alteration lines… even cuter!

Another split rim bowl with pinched accents. I must admit I’m not a huge fan of seeing
the pinch parks as they look somehow “unfinished” to me. But with a couple balls of
clay and a small stamp…

Frequently, the simple ring of stamps is still the solution.
Makes that basic bowl not quite to “basic.”

So now they’re all “detailed” and back under plastic. Still a little to wet to trim.
Hopefully they’ll be ready for trimming later tonight to finish them off.

So we’ve opened the flood gates, and I’m back in studio production mode!
Monday night I started by throwing a bunch of cylinders that will become mugs.
Tonight they were ready to be stamped… so I did… again, and again, and again…
And here’s the “proof”… before & after and the stamp that did all the hard work!

So now they’re all stamped, but they were still too wet to be trimmed. A little squishy still.

They’re all wrapped up overnight so they don’t dry out too fast. Hopefully they”ll be ready
to trim and add handles in the next day or so. Don’t want them to dry too fast!!!
Most people don’t realize how important TIMING is in pottery. Catching the clay at the right
moment to stamp, then a little later to trim & add handles. Waiting for “leatherhard” can be
tough. But if you miss the window of opportunity, your clay can get too dry too fast
and then it might be too late to stamp… or worse yet, too dry to trim!

For my class last night, it was Bowls Night. Where my beginning students learn how
to make a bowl on purpose instead of a cylinder gone bad! Yes, we’ve all been there.
Thinking that cylinder flopped a bit but you “saved it” and turned it into a bowl.
Well trust me… I can tell if it was made as a real bowl, or a flopped cylinder!
Real bowls have a nice rounded bottom inside… NOT a flat bottom with a corner,
and then swooping sides that you think makes a bowl. It doesn’t.

So last night I first showed my students how to throw a bowl on purpose.
And then while they went back to their wheels to make a bowl or two, I stayed at my
wheel and threw eleven more. I then called them all back for Making Bowls Part Two.
Where we take my twelve “matching” simple round bowls and make each one
different from the next.

Bowl Demo #1 – Plain Round Bowl
Sure, they could all stay this way. A simple round bowl with a simple finger spiral.
Something as simple as that finger spiral put in at the very end makes that simple
bowl more personal. It’s YOUR finger that made that spiral!!! Pretty neat, huh?

Bowl Demo #2 – Plain with an Indented Flower
But how much fun is it if your “simple round bowl” reveals a little flower on the bottom
when you finish eating your morning Cheerios?! This pattern was created with a simple
church key tool designed for pressing dragon scales. Also, a great place for glaze to pool.

Bowl Demo #3 – Fluted Rim
With a couple quick flicks of the fingers, the simple round bowl now has a fluted rim.
I even used the corners of my square bat to help me line up and keep my fluting evenly
spaced around the bowl.

Bowl Demo #4 – Flanged Rim
So the top “inch” of this simple round bowl was flared out to create this great flange area.
I add a small indentation around the inside where the change of angle happens to help
delineate where the inside ends and the outside begins. This trick actually decreases the
capacity of your bowl, but makes it look a lot larger!

Bowl Demo #5 – Fluted Flange
Sure, you can flare out the flange. Sure you can do fluted edges. So why not both?!
Just put it together. It’s really just that simple.

Bowl Demo #6 – Wide Flange
And if a “one-inch” flange is fun, why not knock down more than half of the bowl height
to make a very dramatic flange?! It’s the kind of bowl you would expect in a fancy restaurant
where the put one small morsel of fancy food in the middle and charge you a fortune because
the presentation is so impressive. And just wait… that extra wide flange is also a great place
for some stamped textures… still to come!

Bowl Demo #7 – Split & Pinched Rim
This time, the rim on the simple round bowl was split the point of my wooden knife.
I simple pressed it in as the bowl was rotating on the wheel. Once it was split all the way
around at a good depth, I pinched it back together in eight places.

Bowl Demo #8 – Split Rim Filled
Again, I split the rim and we usually talk about how nicely the glaze will fill the split area.
But if glaze fills it well, how about some small coils & balls of clay? Which we just placed
into the groove while both bowl & pieces were wet. Then I squeezed the split rim back
together very gently while hoping to connect all of the balls & coils. I kinda like how the
bowl is so smooth & simple inside, but the rim has this sort of unpredictable randomness.

Bowl Demo #9 – Split Rim Clover
And while we’re splitting rims (and not hairs)… who’s to say a bowl needs to be round?!
Not me. So we split the rim and then altered it into kind of a clover shape.

Enough altering bowl shapes… now it was time to introduce colored slips!

Bowl Demo #10 – Spiraled Slip
After a simple coat of white slip to cover the interior, I dragged the curved end of my
wooden knife through the slip to reveal the contrasting clay color as the wheel was spinning.
A simple technique with striking results. Plus a little textured depth from the remaining slip.

Bowl Demo #11 – Chattered Slip
A little more intimidating, but it’s a simple as covering the entire interior with slip,
then taking your rounded rib tool and chattering through the slip while the wheel is spinning.
It’s the combination of rhythmic tapping, moving up and the wheel spinning that creates this
look. But you have to commit. If you start and get flustered, you’re going to see the mistake
in the middle. Once you start – just breath and keep going.

Bowl Demo #12 – Stenciled Slip
Enough random slip play… so I found a ballerina picture in the newspaper and my
teaching assistant Maureen cut it out for me. I wet the newspaper and carefully applied her
to the bowl’s interior surface. The water is pretty good at sticking down all of the edges. Then
I took the paintbrush with white slip and carefully covered all of her edges. Once covered,
I could slather the entire interior to get an even coverage of white slip. Once solid & smooth…
I had to peel the newspaper back out very carefully to revel my tiny dancer!

So there they are… the twelve bowls that came from my bag of clay.
Remember, all twelve bowls started out very plain, simple, round and mostly matching.
But with a little determination, my students realized that it’s not all that tough to make
each bowl different with a few basic techniques.

This is how they sit overnight wrapped up in plastic to keep them “workable.”
When I come back to the studio tonight, I’ll unwrap them, do a few touch-ups, maybe
some stamping and a bit more surface decorations here & there. When they dry to a good
leatherhard state, I can do some trimming and call ’em done. More photos to come…

My ultimate goal for this class demo is for my students to realize that the clay is not precious.
That they need to make more pieces and get to the point where each piece they make is no
longer considered precious. So that they are more willing to play with their clay.
Twist. Alter. Flute. And if it doesn’t work… who cares? They can make it again…
and try again… and again.. and again.. until they get what they like!!!

It’s just clay.

It’s been a slow start for me getting back into the studio.
I’ve been quite the slacker through the holidays. Enjoying some time off.
Sure, a few small projects here & there. But tonight was the night to actually kick-off
some full production mode! And why not start with my favorite?!… MUGS!!!

So I started by wedging up some balls of reclaim clay. Wedged and ready to go…

So then the throwing began… and it felt GREAT to be back behind the wheel!!!
And as always, I prefer to throw on my plastic bats. I have quite a few of these square bats.
Love ’em… and they take up so much less space on my work table! As you can see, part of my
table is already covered with my large plaster bat and a large pile of goo… aka – reclaim clay!

Once they’ve dried just enough to not be squishy & sticky, I wire them off the bats again
and condense them down onto my plastic ware boards. Again, it’s all about conserving space
on my work tables… so I have room to make more!!! Plus, it’s a lot easier to cover them all
with plastic like this, than if they were spread all over the place on twenty separate bats.

Next up?… stamping, trimming, handles, slip painting, drying, firing, glazing & firing.
Wedging & throwing is the easy part… and just the beginning of more to come.

You know how I LOVE reclaim clay.
It’s a little extra work for a LOT of “free” clay!!!
For those of you who might not know, “reclaiming clay” is basically taking all of your
trimmings & dried clay scraps and reconstituting them back into real, useable clay!

And since my studio is still basically clean through the holidays, I’ve been finding it tough
to really get my act together and get back into full production mode. Still on holiday?!
You know how when there’s no wet work under plastic, pieces that need to be trimmed,
or a kiln deadline approaching, it’s so easy to put things off. If you don’t get started, then
you’re not “trapped” by the calendar. I’ve been meaning to get “started” again…
but instead, I seem to be finding a lot of “little jobs” to fill my time.

Like making stamps.
Like blogging.
Like reclaiming clay.

Next, I need to finish applying to my Summer Art Fairs… and then
I may have run out of those “little jobs” and I’m going to need to start throwing again.
And I can’t wait.