Last week in my SURFACE DECORATIONS class, I showed my students how to use sprigs to decorate their bowls. Basically, a sprig is the “opposite” of a stamp… where you press clay into these handmade “molds”… pop them out… and then score & slip them onto the bowls. So sprigs “stick out”… whereas my usual stamping in more “pressed in.” Kinda fun… we’ll see how this looks after some glaze plays with the new textured surface!

After Tuesday’s “bowls-on-purpose” class demo, I kinda felt they still needed a little somethin’-somethin’!!! So today I did a bit of stamping, detailing & trimming! Making these bowls even more “not-so-basic”!!!

So tonight’s class demo for my Beginners & Advance Beginners was how to make a “bowl on purpose” and NOT another cylinder gone bad! So I did a couple quick demos showing them how to get a nice smooth, rounded bowl interior… without any flat bottoms, bad corners or beginner’s ledges! Once they had the basics… I sent them off to make their own bowls While I threw a few more quickly in class for the upcoming “part two” of tonight’s demo!

Once I had all of my bowls thrown… a bag full of clay… I continued to help my student son their bowls for awhile. With about 45 minutes left to class, we regathered at my demo-wheel and we did some quick alterations & decorations to my thirteen “matching” bowls. My goal is always to show them some quick “tricks” and techniques to alter their bowls… cuz’ the wheel can make them round, but I want THEM to make them their own!!!

So we cruised through all thirteen bowls in about fifteen minutes… quick tricks to make each one different than the one before!

Bowl One – fluted on two opposite sides

Bowl Two – if two are fun, maybe more are better?… fluted edges in eight places

Bowl Three – thin flared flange

Bowl Four – wide flared flange

Bowl Five – flared out flange twisted with four flutes.

Bowl Six – split rim dented on one two sides… most likely where a handle will attach going up & over to make a “basket” handle.

Bowl Seven – split rim pinched together in eight places

Bowl Eight – split rim dented in & dented out… kinda lotus-like.

Bowl Nine – spiral grooves through thick white slip.

Bowl Ten – concentric grooves though thick white slip.

Bowl Eleven – finger squiggles through thick white slip.

Bowl Twelve – swipes with a rib through thick white slip… channeling my inner “Steven Showalter”… if you’re not following him on Instagram, you definitely should be!!!

Bowl Thirteen – chattering texture through thick white slip

And now all of the bowls are up in my studio, under plastic, wrapped up for the night. I’m pretty sure that there “might” possibly be some more stamping, detailing & refining of these bowls before I call them done!

More thick slip textures created by rhythmic chattering with a rubber rib… gently tapping up & down with the rib through a layer of thick slip from the center outwards while the wheel is spinning. Kinda zen. Kinda groovy. Always fun!

Last week in one of my pottery classes, we tackled some surface decoration using thick white slip for textures & patterns. Sure, I could have used colored slip… but I’m more intrigued by how the glazes might play well with these cool textures & grooves!

An empty kiln… always filled with so much potential. Loving the soda-fired patina on the bricks from repetitive firings. Glazing the kiln just as it will “glaze my pots” tomorrow when I fire them in this kiln!

Lotsa’ stamps, lotsa’ green & one really impressive spiral! Another large platter fresh out of the kiln… getting ready & building inventory for the summer art fair season which seems to be coming quickly?!

Celebrating another TEXTURE TUESDAY with some more stamping in the studio. Handmade clay stamps pressed into the clay over & over & over again to create a fun texture on some new vases!

Just finished adding handles to my new batch of “hybrid mugs”… just in time to teach class tonight. Going to try to get these to dry & pack ’em into a bisque kiln quick… gotta get my glaze game going before I load for this weekend’s soda kiln firing.

But I also gotta get my taxes done… when?… not so sure… ugh!

Doing some trimming on my latest batch of hybrid mugs… making the “wheelthrown” part look even more like a nicely trimmed wheelthrown mug.

Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE trimming?! It makes such a difference…