Three stacks of pottery, shelves & bricks from tonight’s loading. A lot of work “crammed in there”… hoping that the soda atmosphere can still make its way around inside to move the soda around!

If you look close, you can also see where my flock of birds have landed!!!

And then the front stack…
which is actually a “square” made of two shelves side-by-side”

Just a few more pieces fresh from my bisque kiln to glaze quickly…
as I load the soda kiln tomorrow night after Summer Camp!
I fire all-day Saturday… so I’ve got to stay focused and get this done!!! Inlay glazes into the stamped impressions, liner glazes, clean, wad & ready to go!

Under wraps for the night… so I can come back to them later to do a little smoothing & touching up. As well as adding some accents & details with a bit of colored flashing slips. Then they can be left out to dry… and then into a kiln!!!

After a productive night in the studio, we now have a dozen mugs…
ready for some colored flashing slip accents and then a quick trip to the bisque kiln!!!

Here’s the “fussy part” of doing handles… score, slip, attach, repeat.

I always start with the top attachment… then move on to the bottom attachment making sure it’s secure, lined-up and that the handle is a good proportion to the cup.

I try to smooth them in as much as possible… but know that I can do a little more refining when I come back to them. Thus another one of the reasons I keep my mugs under plastic again after attaching handles!

Making handles for the new mugs… starting with small blocks of wedged clay that I slam on the table to make these “carrot” shapes.

And then I pull my handles the old-school way, let them set-up and then attach them to my mugs!

Several steps & timing along the way…
all to make a cylinder become a MUG!!!

Another batch of mugs just in time…
hoping to get them through all the steps of the process in time
to get them into my next schedule soda kiln.

So tonight I did a bit of stamping… here are the before & after shots…

Mug #1 —

Mug #2 —

Mug #3 —

Mug #4 —

Mug #5 —

Mug #6 —

Mug #7 —

Mug #8 —

Mug #9 —

Mug #10 —

Mug #11 —

Mug #12 —

So for now they’re all stamped and back under plastic for the night. My plan is to trim them all tomorrow night… and then add handles… and then paint some colored flashing slips on them… dry… bisque… glaze… wad… all before my soda kiln deadline!!!

Okay, so I know I said that those flower pots would be the last thing before my soda-firing deadline… but I’m pretty sure I can squeeze in a quick batch of mugs too!!! You know they’re my favorite thing to make!!! So what’s another dozen…

Adding a few stamps, textures & patterns to my latest batch of flower pots. Handmade stamps for handmade pots… pressed in one, by one, by one…

Okay, so my birds are still working their way closer to the soda kiln… I’ve added some colored details to the twigs & leaves! Not quite sure what I’m doing with the birds yet… I have too many options, but not enough decisions!!!