new and blue

  




Love this pattern and texture, I'm gonna have to put it on all kinds of pieces....

This is a great big mug, I double dipped it in blue and rutile glaze.

Love it so much, I almost kept it.

 exposed rim bowl

                 i love texture.

i don't like how this photographed. the colours are much earthier in person.


below, the rays wrap around.

               inside, of course.

another batch of goodies

Now if I could only make this bigger....

This bowl is porcelain, it came out this cheery yellow using the same glaze as the bowl below...

Landon polished this with the back of a spoon when it was bone-hard; this is called Burnishing. It went all shiny and smooth, and then after firing it became rough again. A neat effect to play with. I love that the bubbles that were underglazed blue, stayed blue, even after being polished.

This is one of my crazy fairy-houses/oil diffusers... they didn't photograph as nicely as I would have liked....the top is a maple leaf.

This is a very big piece I've started... So big, it will just barely fit in the kiln! Can you tell I'm kind of excited about it?? .... more to come if it survives the drying process.... and first firing....

More Cool Stuff!

This is only my second load of finished ware out of the kiln. I feel like I am learning so much about what does and doesn't work.... and needing to keep a record of it for myself.... so here are some of the pics, and some of my personal notes about things...

I'm really happy with how this looks kinda like Raku, without being Raku. It is layers and layers of underglaze, and a clear glaze brushed on over top.

 I'm having fun experimenting with using one kind of glaze for the inside and another for the outside...

 Honey inspired vase...

This is just a silly little vase that I was using as a tester for making my own glaze. I underglazed with a slip that I harvested from a local lake, and added wood ash that was left over from a beach fire.... all crushed up and mixed up. After just the first firing it didn't look much different, and I can't remember if I dipped this in a clear glaze or a green one.... but the second firing seemed to have made the ash show up; it's the darker burnt looking bits.
I'm definitely going to have to play with that some more.

 I brushed clear glaze over a black underglaze on the outside of this. It makes the shine patchy.

The inside of this bowl is layers and layers of various underglazes as well; coated with clear glaze. It is a deeper purple than what is showing in the picture; I think including some black in the underglaze gives the colour some depth.


I'm curious, what do you like and not like? What works?

my first batch of glazed ware!!

Not bad for my first go... I would like for the lid on this to fit better.
It's cool to see the way the different glazes layered on top of each other settled into the texture.

This is probably the nicest bowl I've made yet. I love it's roundness; and unlike my first 25 bowls, this one doesn't weigh a hundred pounds! Hahaha!

I have to keep this bowl because Oakley decorated the inside of it. He used a ton of under glazes on it, and then we put the green on top. So Cool!

I had some fun with texture. I love holding a warm mug with some texture!

This is the back of the same mug....

This was a surprise for me. The clear glaze was SO chunky going on, and I was told it didn't look good over this color of clay.... I really didn't know what to expect.

More fun with texture!
The other nice surprise, was that the clay turned a nice deep red! It started out chocolate brown, and I was shocked when it turned Orange after the bisque fire, (and not in a good way). Phew! Now it's beautiful!

Hope you enjoyed checking out some pics from my first batch!

the waiting game

Patience. I am having to learn patience.

I loaded my kiln with glazed pieces, all ready to fire my first glazed load in my
new kiln.... only to realize that I would have to stay up till 2am to safely do it.

I wonder if the ware being cold from sitting in the kiln all night will make a difference...
I wonder if this firing will really take only 6-8 hours? Regardless, I will have to wait until at least tomorrow to unload it.
I wonder how I will muster the patience to wait until it is cooled down enough before unloading it?
I wonder if this load will say "PING" the way my load did last year?

I wonder if I mixed the glaze right... if it is going to crack or bubble...
in fact, I know I mixed one of the glazes wrong.
I'm pretty sure it was a green tint, that was meant to be added to white.... I'm pretty sure I accidentally made it all up, and then noticed the consistency was wrong... and then did some crappy math and added it to all of my white, and then figured it was still not watered down enough....

So after all that math, and weighing and figuring, I ended up with a semi-random mix of white, clear and green tint. I think the proportions were close to right. I guess we'll see.
And then when I went to dip some items in clear glaze, it was too think and lumpy... I had to wash them off, and try again. We'll see what happens with that too.

Come tomorrow I could be unloading a batch of messed up stuff! Or really beautiful stuff.... there's no way to know.... and so I wait.

I am a Potter

Alright. Here it is. I'm whole heartedly embracing it. I am a potter.

I have an ever evolving space in which to create. I have the wheel, the kiln, the muck buckets, boxes of clay, buckets and tools, and mixers and mess. I have shelves full of work of various levels... some of which I examine, notice I could do better and muck. Also filling the shelves is work which children have made. Volcano cups and bowls of varying beautiful sizes! A food dish someone made for their beloved pet.

And my latest love, fairy houses! I get to use the wheel for the bottoms. I get to carve in the doors and windows, and hollow out a place to slide the candle in. I get to use table work to make the tops, and I get to use nature as my inspiration. I get to use brightly colored underglazes to bring them to life! Getting to use so many techniques tickles my brain, it makes me happy. Brings me peace.

Keep checking in here as I will be posting pictures of different projects, ramblings, and wonderings...