Okay, so now I have “official” Fire When Ready Pottery Pinterest boards you can follow.

Yes, I’ve been snowed in and uploading all day.
Five different Pinterest boards full of my pottery images for you to pin & share!
Just do a quick Pinterest Search for the following…

Fire When Ready Pottery

Fire When Ready: Stamping

Fire When Ready: Mugs

Fire When Ready: Tiles

Fire When Ready: Textures

And more to come… although I’m still not sure what I’m doing?!

So it’s been FAR TO LONG since the last time I made teapots. I’ve put them off. And put them off. But I figure it was finally time to tackle teapots. So here we go… the beginnings of six teapots. I started with six shaped cylinders. And then made several lids and several spouts. Pieces & parts. As a production potter, I planned ahead and made the opening pretty much the same size on all six of them. I figure it would give me more chances of a lid fitting if I threw them the same size, and then made multiple lids to fit. Eventually, something’s got to fit together, right?!

I let them stiffen up overnight under plastic. When I came back today, they were ready for some stamping. So I pulled out one of my stamp cases to figure out what patterns I would be using. Big choice… and somehow, I always tend to pick out my favorites. Go figure.

Teapot #1 –

Teapot #2 –

Teapot #3 –

Teapot #4 –

Teapot #5 –

Teapot #6 –

So now everything is wrapped up for the night, drying to leather-hard so I can assemble them later. Lots of pieces & parts to put together to make six new teapots!!!

Last night I stamped some more larger, serving bowls. I always love to see the transformation from the “plain” round bowl to the stamped & textured finished bowl. It always surprises me when I see how much of a change can be made with just a couple stamps!!!

Bowl #1 –

Bowl #2 –

Bowl #3 –

Bowl #4 –

Bowl #5 –

So now they’re wrapped up loosely for the night… hoping to dry them up to a good leather-hard state so I can do some trimming on the bottoms.

That time of the session again… Last night was the night we tackle making “bowls on purpose” instead of cylinders gone bad that just happened to turn into a bowl. It’s my favorite class to teach of the whole session. Not only is it fun to see the light bulb go off when they realize that they can do it too… but also when they see how much FUN they can have moving their clay around.

So I started with a full bag of clay… cut it up into 13 pieces and started wedging. We then sat down for the bowl making demo. Once we had covered the basics on bowls, they all went back to work while I made twelve more bowls. When I was done throwing all thirteen, I called them back and we went through some quick tricks to make each of the “identical” bowls each a one-of-a-kind piece of pottery!

Bowl #1 – Two simple fluted edges.
A quick flick of the fingers can change the whole profile of a simple round bowl.
Two fingers side-by-side. one inside, one outside. Pinch. Twist. Repeat.

Bowl #2 – If two are good, eight fluted edges might be even better?!

Bowl #3 – No need to leave bowls round, right?!
So I showed my class quickly how to alter the shape a bit. A little pull here, a little tug there, and suddenly the bowl is slightly squared-off. And then I indented the four “straight” sides. I’m kinda thinking that there may be a handle added to this one at some point?!

Bowl #4 – A simple flange flared out along the top rim.
Unfortunately, somehow I missed taking a “Before” picture of this plain bowl. But I’m sure it comes as no surprise that “any” plain bowl needs to be decorated. Last night I threw the bowl, and tonight I added a stamped line around the bowl where the flange meets the bowl interior. So here’s the “After” picture…

Bowl #5 – The same simple flange, but now fluted in four places!
Combine a simple flared flange with four fluted edges. Which then presents itself with a great line waiting to be stamped. So last night I threw the bowl, and tonight I did some stamping.

Bowl #6 – Another simple flange, this time further down & wider! More room to play later…
Again, last night I threw the bowl, then tonight I did a little stamping & white slip decorating for contrasting accents. This time, a little more whimsically stamped… not quite so geometrically repetitive.

Bowl #7 – A quick flower made with a simple dragon-scale tool. Twelve impressions. One flower.

Bowl #8 – A split rim, pinched back together in four places.

Bowl #9 – A simple flange with a quick layer of white slip. I think once this bowl dries & stiffens up a bit, I might do some carving through the white slip to reveal a design and contrast between the slip and then ochre clay body.

Bowl #10 – Simple bowl. Simple slip. Simple spiral. Cover the bowl with a simple layer of white slip, then drag the rounded end of a tool through the slip and upwards as the wheel is spinning. The goal is to reveal the contrast between the slip and the ochre clay body. It’s also a nice bonus that there’s some thickness to the remaining slip to add some texture & pooling-possibilities for the glaze.

Bowl #11 – If a spiral is good, a squiggle might be better?!
And then, as I was carrying all of my demo bowls upstairs, this one bowl bumped into one of the racks in the hallway – denting in one side. It would never be “perfectly” round again, so I did a little creative camouflage… and squared it up!

Bowl #12 – White slip with some rhythmic chattering. I cover the entire inside of the bowl with some white slip, and then take my green rounded rib and tap it through the slip as the bowl is spinning. While it spins, and you’re tapping, you also need to move up the bowl all at the same time! The final result is a combination of all three movements & speed of each.

Bowl #13 – White slip over some newspaper cut-out stencils. I just cut the numbers out of a newspaper, wet the paper and stick them onto the inside of the bowl. Then carefully paint white slip over the letters to make sure they are stuck down well. Then it’s a quick coverage over the whole bowl. The tough part is peeling out the newspaper stencils after the slip sets up a bit.

So there they are… all thirteen bowls. All made from one bag of stoneware with ochre clay. I chose the ochre clay as it fires to a beautiful chocolate brown in cone 10 reduction… which also makes for a really beautiful contrast to the white slip.

Hopefully, my students enjoyed the demo. Not only to I hope they learned how to make bowls “on purpose”… but also to get over the beginner’s feeling that each piece is SO precious. They need to play with their clay and be willing to make a few mistakes along the way. It’s just clay. It’s nothing too precious. And they need to build up some confidence and start making some bowls that express themselves. Not just the basic round bowl that the wheel kinda made for them!