Finished pieces

This sun and moon face turned out great.  Gold glazed features and rust patina are on the sun and gold glazed and gun metal green and copper patina on the moon.

I love the way this silverware caddy came out.  Three tubes are attached together and the oxide stain rubbed into the impressions is a matte brown.

I love doing these honey jars with the bees and letters.  The letters have an oxide stain rubbed into them and wiped off leaving unglazed letters with brown stain.

I really am still here!

I've been neglecting my blog for waaayy too long.  Somehow life just seems to get in the way!  I've been pretty busy in my shop making things.  I never remember to take pictures but did this time. 

This is hand built project of a 3 tube utensil holder/organizer.  I had one in my Etsy shop and it sold so naturally that means I have make another one!  This will have to dry about 2 weeks before it goes in the kiln the first time.  But it's warm here now so drying shouldn't be a problem.  Actually, I will leave it covered for a few days to keep it from drying too fast which can lead to cracking.

3 slabs were rolled out with the slab roller and wrapped around the cardboard tubes that my rolls of bubble wrap come on.  They are the perfect size.  And I hate to throw them away.  

This is the next day with the tubes removed.

This shows the stamped designs and the bottom added.  All one piece for the bottom and that ties the tubes together.

Big sunflower sculpture and 2 flower horn sconces

This is a crescent moon face with sleeping sun face

Various jars, ring holders, bowls

Soap pumps and bowls

This was today's work.  These will be honey jars, garlic keepers and a soap pump on the left

Garlic keeper and lid and a spinning bowl(right side).  This will all be trimmed tomorrow morning.

 I hope to be back posting more this year.  Sometimes it feels like there are just too many options for on line presence.  Do I post to facebook, flicker, twitter?  I don't want to be obnoxious.  But I'll try to post when something is interesting.  And, hopefully, I'll get the finished pieces posted here so you can see how they turned out.

Dream Pot series

This is the process of how I make what I call my Dream Pots.  A little history; they are inspired by a dream I had one night several years ago.  It was so vivid and when I woke up I had to make a sketch.  As you can see I have to start with a "structure" for the clay.  Long slabs of clay are rolled out and draped over a balloon resting in a large cardboard tube.  I wrapped some bubble wrap to give it more dimension.

I use my slab roller to roll out the clay.  The slabs are very heavy and when I drape them over the balloon, they will fold and the ends will sometimes tear a little but that just adds to the organic look of this pot.  I will come back when all the slabs are positioned and "help" them a little with the folding and tearing.  I like the raw edge the tearing gives the slabs. Very irregular!

Thick slabs of clay rolled with a textured rolling pin for a swirly design.  This is 3 slabs so far.

4 slabs

A total of 6 slabs and an added base.  This is getting pretty dry and is very fragile at this stage.  It was bisque fired to cone 04.  It's so big it took up half the kiln.

After the bisque fire, it was a little less fragile but still hard to handle.  It's really heavy! I had to pour the glaze over it as it was sitting in a shallow pan.

The inside has a nice pool of blue color at the bottom and blue drips down the side over a pale milky green.  The tans of the clay show through the glaze.

I think it is gorgeous!  It's about 15" tall and wide.  I can visualize it sitting in someone's home maybe in a foyer on a table as a great display piece.

This will be Dream Pot #8.  We've decided that numbering will be a nice touch.  This is destined to go to my favorite gallery, Genuine Georgia in Greensboro, Ga.  She had the last one for less than a day before it sold!  I will be making more as I get the right kind of clay collected.  I use all the scraps of white, tan and brown clay that I use all mashed up together.  This makes the pots be different every time. It takes about 25 lbs of clay.

I hope you enjoyed the tour and the insight into one of my more diffucult processes.  

Elephant ears that live forever

This elephant ear that was a star in my last post, became something permanent.  I cut leaves, removing the stem and pressed them into my stoneware clay.  I used the largest leaves for the platter and smaller leaves for the plates.  I used hosta leaves for the smaller sauce dishes.  I actually have had the pieces made since back in the summer but have just gotten around to glazing and photographing.  I think it turned out great.  The glaze color reminds me of the natural color.  Greenish blue with darker accents.

I may try the suggestion of doing some concrete stepping stones maybe next year.

And even if you're not into sushi, the set can be used for all kinds of serving.

I think I need a bigger house so I can keep more of my own work.  I would love to keep this set but just don't have room in my kitchen!

Here it is!

Remember this project?  After it dried for a couple of weeks, I finally got it bisqued fired.  That means it was fired the first time just to get it solid and ready to be glazed.  Well, it sat around on the counter waiting patiently to be glazed.  I didn't have room in my kiln for it with all the other things I was trying to get done.  It took up one whole side of the kiln so I had to wait until I had just a few things to fire at one time.

I used canna leaf and arrowhead leaf molds for the body

And this is after glazing with a blueish green glaze called Smokey Mountain.
It's a glossy to slightly matte glaze that looks totally different on my brown clays
 than it does on anything else.  I think it's gorgeous. I love the drips and runs.

You can see the impressions from the leaf molds I used.

The inside

TA-DAH

Thanks for waiting patiently to see the end product. I hope you weren't disappointed!!

Inspired again

It's hard to get inspired lately.  I think I'm still burned out from the Christmas rush and lately, cold and dreary weather. Sometimes I think I just need a new toy to be inspired again. I ordered these leaf shaped texture mats before Christmas and have been waiting to have time to play with them.  They came from www.clayartcenter.net.  I went overboard and now have all kinds of leaf shapes; oak, maple, sycamore, canna lily, arrowhead, grape.  I'm so excited to have them.

Slab roller is very handy to have

Cylinder former life was a swimming
pool noodle!

So this cylinder vase is a combination of canna lily and arrowhead.  The form is an old swimming pool "noodle" wrapped in plastic wrap.  I rolled out the slabs with my slab roller and used a rolling pin to press with the leaves. Then they were wrapped around the mold and attached with slip.  I used some smaller slabs to fill in at the bottom and top.  When it's stiff I will remove the mold and add a bottom.

Canna leaf and arrowhead leaf for the body

Top

Canna lily and arrowhead leaves

turned over scored and slipped

I hope you can get the idea.  I don't seem to able to get all the pictures aligned like I want.

The slabs were rolled out first, and wrapped around the cylinder, scored and slipped.  Now it is waiting to get stiff.

That's for later this afternoon. 

So what gives you inspiration?

Dream Pot

I call this pot "Dream Pot".  This was a pot I made after I had a dream about it.  It was one of those dreams that I woke up from and had to make a sketch so I wouldn't forget how it looked.  It took me several days of pondering to figure out how make it.

What I finally came up with was a hand building technique.  I rolled out long slabs of clay with the slab roller(one of my favorite pieces of equipment).  I took a blown up balloon and secured it to a tall cardboard tube(about 12" diameter).  I placed each long slab of clay over the balloon and let the ends drape and fold like they wanted to.  This pot totally did its own thing.  I added a saucer shape to the bottom for stability.  Then the whole thing dried upside down for several days when I could take it off the balloon.  Then I propped up the sides just to prevent them from sagging.  After it dried for like 4 weeks, I have the courage to try and move it to the kiln.  It fired slowly in a bisque fire for 12 hours.  Glazing was done pouring glaze inside and out and then another firing.  I held my breath the whole time(well, it felt like it).

This piece now has a new home with  someone else.  It was sold at the GHAA gallery in Helen, Ga.  I just found out today that it had been sold.  I was happy that someone will be able to love it in their home as much as I loved making it.

New kind of ring holder

I was playing around with some left over clay the other day and I had this inspiration for a ring holder.  I know other people hand build them but I usually do them on the wheel(easier).  So I  started pinching the saucer and decided it needed some stamps.  My first choice is always something with stars.  Yea, I'm that kind of person, ;)

I rolled out a little cone and then attached the two together. It's glazed in a pretty, speckled blue with darker blue on the cone.  I love the way it turned out and made several more with different textures, glazes, and stamps.

This one is in brown clay with butterfly stamps and a little butterfly cutout.

This one has butterflies stamped around the cone in a pretty  blueish gray over tan speckled clay.

They will eventually all be in my Etsy shop.  Some may make the trip to the mountains but not much is selling there.  I'm not sure what to think of all the changes made in the Etsy search.  I hope it will mean more views and sales.  I had to go in change quite a few titles to have the most pertinent words at the beginning of each title.  Just when I thought I was hitting my stride with sales.  Not so many that I can't keep up but enough to keep me busy.  I look at some shops that have 10 or 15 sales in a day and I think, wow, that would be awesome.  But then I think wow, that's a lot of WORK!!. So we'll see how this all shakes out and I know Christmas shoppers are just waiting in the wings!!!

What new things are you making?