Dog bowl #1

For this dog bowl, I used Clio's food bowl as a mold of sorts, draping a slab of clay over it. (The bowl was covered in an old kneehigh stocking, to prevent sticking.)

Then, after bisque firing, my granddaughter glazed it. I have no idea which glazes she used other than those from a Mayco sampler, and I'm sure she doesn't remember. She selected them based on glaze combinations as shown online. The results are interesting, though.

The lesson learned with this project is clay shrinks. This pic shows the dog dish sitting completely inside its model, making it more appropriate for a cat than a dog (at least, my dogs). Going forward, I will need to keep this in mind.

I will offer the bowl to my granddaughter, in case she wants it, but I would be happy to keep it for myself.

One ugly sushi boat

One of my complaints about the recent hand-building class I took was lack of oversight by the instructor, as she was busy working on her own stuff during the class. Maybe if she had been paying attention, she would have stopped me from doing this:

Before

After

The colors are okay, but what I did with them is ugh. If I had it to do over, I would have used underglaze on the imprints, then maybe glazed them with the Mayco 'Aurora Green', then glazed the whole thing with the Mayco 'Fossil Rock'.

The accompanying soy sauce bowl is a little better. Because it is so short, the Mayco 'Landslide' pretty much just flowed onto the Mayco 'Peppered Plum', but fortunately did not flow off the piece onto the kiln shelf.

Before

After

My SO and I glazed our bowls on New Year's Day (do we know how to have fun or what?) Mine is my last piece from the class. Going forward, I think my pottery posts will be more project-centric, assuming I remember to take photos and document what I am working on. My goal of reserving Wednesdays for clay-making already failed: I didn't sleep well Tuesday night, slept in Wednesday morning, walked the dogs, then took a long nap in the afternoon, so most of that day was shot. Better luck next week.

Class six

Our final hand-building class was this past week. The emphasis (for me) was on glazing. The brushes and glazes at the studio were not impressive, so I worked on a couple of pieces, then brought the others home.

Sushi boat

These went on the dipping dish

Dipping dish

Between the store owner's need to fire LOTS of pieces for upcoming shows and all the pending holiday gifts, the to-be-fired shelves were rather packed and some of my stuff did not get fired. But these two platters were done. I'm medium pleased with them.

And then I went shopping in the store which I'll detail later.

On the homefront, I did make some "cookies" for putting under objects with drippy glazes and some stars for ornaments (or whatever). The cookies don't need to be perfect, just flat. The plastic wrap under the star-shaped cookie cutter keeps the metal from sticking to the clay and makes a tidier edge.

I also carved some stamps, one with my initials, the other with a dog paw print. They need some more cleaning up, which isn't easy to do on such small items.

This piece was supposed to be a dog bowl, but the wall wasn't working for me, so now it is a random dish of some sort. After marring the surface with my fingers, I decided to go all the way and added the fluting and impressions to give it some interest and texture. (I don't have a decent banding wheel, so placing a piece on newsprint makes for an easy way to turn it.)

I "slumped" some clay over a bowl. (The nylon keeps the clay from sticking to the bowl as it shrinks.) This will be another popcorn bowl, but slab-built. I'm leaving its surface plain. I think. Until it is bisque-fired, I can change my mind.

Soon it will be a new year, which is the perfect time to make some changes. I think I will alter the format of my pottery posts so that I can show the steps of creating a piece all in one go. A separate document with all the little tips and tricks I pick up along the way might be helpful as well. And by "helpful", I mean helpful to me, so I don't have to search for information in the blog. Stay tuned!

Interim week

No class last week because of Thanksgiving. Instead, I got brave enough to try some more glazing, but only after consulting the combination examples on the Mayco site.

What I have is the Mayco Stoneware 2023 Glaze Kit, with samples of a dozen glazes. I wanted to try Amaryllis (SW-192) on the fish I made a while ago (and which I apparently never blogged about), but I didn't want it to be *all* Amaryllis. So I applied two coats of Sand Dollar (SW-196) on the head and fins, then two coats of the Amaryllis all over. Theoretically, the head and fins should turn out different from the body. We'll see! (The dark spots are crystals that should produce an interesting result.)

This piece is one of my watering devices. I plan to set it an inch or so into the soil of a potted plant. When I water the planter by pouring water into the fish mouth, the water should flow out the buried holes at the base. Ideally.

After watching a video provided by Amaco on layering PC-31 Oatmeal over PC-33 Iron Lustre, I glazed a couple of heavy mugs that I also never blogged about. The one on the left has three coats of Oatmeal over three coats of Iron Lustre, with the Oatmeal restricted to the top third of both the inside and outside of the mug. The one on the right is the opposite: three coats of Iron Lustre over three coats of Oatmeal, with the Iron Lustre on just the top third of the inside and outside, plus the heart.

I frequently fall down a rabbit hole of glaze combination posts on FB, where everyone seems to apply three coats of each glaze. Yet I'm a little worried about how much these glazes will run, so my next task is to make "cookies" or "biscuits" - disks of bisqueware to go under the pieces when they are glaze fired. The cookies will protect the kiln shelf from running glazes... I hope.

Class five

We were supposed to make butter dishes at the fifth hand-building pottery class, but I kind of steered us toward finishing techniques. My popcorn bowl from last week wasn't as bad as I thought it was, but I wanted to make it better. One method is using a rather large rasp to trim away excess clay and make the walls more consistent. Once again, no pix.

When I was satisfied with my popcorn bowl, I decided to pinch a little pumpkin. The instructor showed me how to make the ridges using a shaping tool, the same one I used to make the toes on my turtle pieces. It's one thing to *have* pottery tools, but it is another thing to know how to use them.

Then I laid awake that night, thinking of different ways to make pumpkins, both large and small, most of the methods horribly inefficient.

At home, I glazed another platter I had made a while ago. This one is similar to the previous one, but this time I decided to use both Celadon glazes over the underglaze. Fingers crossed it turns out okay.

Dark green underglaze, applied to leaf

Dark green underglaze, wiped

I've taken several pottery classes, but I don't recall being encouraged to "rib" in any of them. Ribbing a slab after rolling it out not only smooths the surface, but aligns the clay cells. I obviously did not rib this platter, nor the previous one.

Using a "magic eraser" gave cleaner results removing excess underglaze, but the small imperfections on the platter's surface held onto the color.

Jade celadon, applied to leaf

Wasabi celadon, applied all over

Both of the leaf platters are at FW Clay, waiting to be fired. The store charges by the weight; the two platters weighed 3 pounds altogether. Since I used my own glazes, the total was $5.25. (Bisque firing is free if one purchases the clay from the store.) I could see where someone doing mass production for an art festival might find this method expensive, but I don't really have anything to compare it to besides the maker space I was at, and they recently changed their pricing policy for kiln use, probably because they were getting so many big producers in there.

We do not have class this week, due to Thanksgiving. Hopefully, all my pieces from class will be bisque fired by next week, and the platters glaze fired as well.

Class four

The fourth hand-building class was to be on coil-building. I was pretty excited because I have struggled with this. And the instructor promised to teach us an "easy" method. Again, I neglected to take photos.

Her method was more of a hybrid between coil-building, pinching, and wheel-throwing. My first impression was, I don't like this. It took me two tries to come up with a quart-size popcorn bowl that would stand up. I've seen videos where the coils are more like long slabs, where the coils are thick as hawser rope, where the coils are very thin, so I'm aware that there is more than one way to make a coil-built bowl. But I was disappointed that what we learned was not more traditional.

Or maybe I was a bit disgruntled because the instructor pooh-poohed the container of slip I brought for constructing the wall vases. I was hoping for a bit of help with them, especially the cutting part, but was mostly left on my own. Consequently, they are not quite even. The instructor seemed alarmed that I was not going to carve them. Frankly, I cannot draw, let alone carve, so I brought them home and "carved" them using different pasta shapes.

After watching several YT videos on glazing with Amaco Celadon, I decided to work on a platter I made a while ago. Initially, I was going to use dark green underglaze (Amaco Decorating Colors) on the leaves, then top them with Celadon 'Jade', then cover the whole thing with Celadon 'Wasabi'. But after wiping off the underglaze, I decided to skip the Jade and just use the Wasabi. We'll see how it turns out.

Underglaze applied

Underglaze wiped off (mostly)

Glazed (but still a bit damp)

I admit that I get a bit disgruntled with myself because I am not a very good potter. But I remind myself that I have not been doing it long, and I like to experiment, so results are usually unexpected. I'm still itchy to get a small kiln of my own, so I can make my ugly pottery away from the public eye, as I do enjoy the process.

Class three

I neglected to take any photos of what I worked on during the third class of the hand-building workshop. We were scheduled to make platters of some sort, but the instructor also said we could deviate from the lesson plan. So I started making a wall vase. Well, actually two wall vases, as the trick is to make a container, then cut it in half vertically and attach a back to each half. I created a round container and the slabs for the backs.

Our first class was about creating stamps and rollers. The two latecomers are *still* working on theirs. I tried working on them at home, but it hasn't gone well. I'm beginning to think I prefer to *buy* stamps and rollers rather than make them.

In the past couple of months, I have tried to set aside Wednesdays as "block" days, when I don't schedule anything so that I am free to work on artsy craftsy stuff. I think today is the first blocked Wednesday without an interruption. So I started a slab container for holding chop sticks. Instead of using a stamp or roller for the design, I snipped some tips off an arborvitae in my yard.

Each side is about 3"x6". I left the sprigs on the clay while I assembled the container, to prevent smudging of the design. That's something one can't do with rollers and stamps.

One problem I have in class is rushing. Even though each session is three hours long, I find myself trying to cram as much experience into that time slot as I can. At home, I have to remind myself to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. Things go much better when one doesn't hurry.

I'm also trying to get as much out of each class as I can. My goal was to improve my techniques so that anything I make in the future will turn out better than in the past. The tips and tricks are what make the difference.

Road trip

Yesterday my SO and I took a (LONG) drive in the Michiana area, to hit up the Michiana Pottery Tour, or at least part of it. We have gone on this tour before, sticking to the area around Goshen, so this time we decided to venture farther afield. The first stop was in Constantine, MI. Then we visited a studio in Bristol, IN, and two more in South Bend. We were going to go to Shipshewana, too, but pooped out and had to stop and eat.

Each stop featured a host and between four and seven guest potters. So there was a LOT of pottery in a LOT of forms in a LARGE range of prices. I bought three pieces.

This jug is about 6" tall. The funny thing is we had seen a bunch of these at the maker space where I fire my pottery, and I was surprised that there would be two potters with the same idea. Turned out it was the same potters - Briggan and Jeff Mueller - from Fort Wayne. Briggan was generous enough to explain how they were made - she created a plaster slip casting mold, then used a combination of Mayco and Spectrum glazes on them.

This mixing bowl is about the right size for scrambling eggs or mixing up a small batch of pancakes. The whisk came with it, too. Made by Mark Goertzen of Goshen.

Cristal Sabbagh, who describes herself as an "interdisciplinary artist" and is from Chicago, creates lovely cups with original artwork, but I opted for one of her necklaces.

It's so inspiring to meet all these potters and see their studios. There are a LOT of mugs at these events, which has gotten me thinking that maybe I should upgrade my coffee mugs. The mugs I make are more like bricks, while the ones at these fairs are usually porcelain, light-weight and thin. Per usual, our jaunt has left me with lots to think about.

Plated

Even though I attempted to keep notes on my pottery work, they are a bit cryptic. I made six plates for using under plant pots, but am having a bit of difficulty figuring out which notes go with which plates. The long delay in firing did not help, nor does my sieve of a memory.

The largest plate came first, I'm pretty sure, but I'm not sure of the clay base other than not stoneware. I used a Corelle dinner plate as a slump mold, but the first attempt cracked. The kiln tech suggested I add grog to the clay, which I did on my next try, but I also put a layer of newspaper between the clay and the mold. After the bisque firing, I glazed it with 'Latte' and 'Amber'. (I didn't make note of the glaze brand.)

Amber on Latte or Latte on Amber?

Next I made two more plates, using smaller Corelle plates as slump molds. They are stoneware. I left the imperfections on the surface, to see how they turned out. After bisque firing, I coated each with underglaze, one in 'Cinnemon' and the other in 'Medium Blue', both Amaco, then wiped them to reveal the imperfections. I skipped using a clear glaze over them because, theoretically the stoneware should be vitrified after a second firing. But the kiln tech urged me to reconsider, so at a (much) later date, I poured clear glaze over them. I wish I had taken photos of them after applying the underglaze, as by the time they were fired (five months later), I could not remember what they looked like beforehand.

Cinnemon

Medium Blue

Then I made two more plates, one from clay stained blue with cobalt oxide, and one that had the cobalt oxide clay mixed with unstained clay (light blue). (I assume all the clay was stoneware.) After bisque firing, I glazed the plates with 'Indigo'.

Indigo

I don't know why I decided to glaze these plates, as the cobalt oxide color was a nice light blue. I could have applied a clear glaze instead.

Cobalt oxide

There is another plate, one that I might have made before the dinner-plate sized one, as the colors are similar.

Amber and Latte again?

This post reveals several frustrations. One is my record-keeping, which is rather poor. Hence, this blog. Another is my ignorance. I know stoneware can be fired up to cone 10, but I don't know how glazes behave outside their designated cone numbers.

And a third is kiln frustration where I have my work fired. All the greenware is bisqued at a "low" temperature; glazed work may be bisqued at "low" or "medium" or "high". I don't know what cones apply to those categories. Is cone 5 low or medium? Then having the kilns inoperable for months is another issue. I can almost see a kiln in my future.

Turtles

I attend pottery workshops when I can. The most recent one was taught by Joe Pelka, a local potter who is adicted to caffeine and talking and fun. The workshop was not really for learning pottery techniques, but we definitely had fun making these turtles.

We each made two, and embellished them as we saw fit. The bodies were rather thick, so thick I was a bit surprised they didn't explode in the kiln. But Joe pierced them multiple times on the underside to prevent that. No turtles were lost in the bisqueing process.

I could not help but be pleased when Joe targeted my "dinosaur" turtle as his favorite class turtle of all time. He even made that comment in front of the whole class. *blush* Those words of praise really boosted my creative confidence.

For session two, we glazed our creations. Joe had mixed up about ten different glazes and created test tiles for each so we could see what they would look like. The primary glaze I chose was less glossy, which I later found out was due to his mixing underglaze with glaze.

Joe gave me some words of wisdom. When I showed him my glazing and commented that I frequently go too far, he said, "Then stop." I keep that in mind with more than just pottery.

I named these two guys Michelangelo and Leonardo (yes, after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). They have a place of pride on my coffee table, keeping the handspun, handwoven runner from sliding around.

Long time, no see

Hello there.

This blog basically fell to the wayside, probably because trying to maintain more than two blogs was a bit much. There is the garden blog (woodchuckacres) to keep track of the yard and the fiber blog (bittenbyknittin) to keep track of my adventures in fiber arts, and now I want to keep track of my pottery journey. I thought of starting a brand new blog, but that takes a lot of work. So I'm going to usurp this blog and use it for clay.

I am very new to clay, definitely an amateur who sometimes gets caught up in experimenting instead of creating. And that's okay. One experiement that is going on right now is mixing mason stains with stoneware. My motivation for this is my lousy glazing skills. I figure this way I'll have a base color that I can embellish, then cover with a clear glaze. We'll see how that works out.

1%, 5%, 10% stain samples

Today I poured some plaster batts. I've been skulking around the thrift shops, in search of plastic bowls and such, to mold the plaster of paris goop. There is a round one that will be just a batt, and the other three will be slump molds of various shapes and sizes. I already have a large rectagular batt that I use as a building surface.

I've been following a few pottery groups on FB which have been inspirational. One potter showed pics of leaf-shaped pieces she had made. So, of course, I had to try this myself. Using a leaf from the coleus on the front porch, I made two things, one an an impression of the leaf, the other an outline of the same leaf.

I don't have a kiln... yet. Instead, I joined a "maker space" where someone else does the firing. This is both good and bad. The worst is the kilns keep breaking down. That is why I'm tempted to get a kiln of my own, but even the small ones are expensive. Plus I would need an electrician to upgrade the power.

Besides the above, I've been glazing some slip molds that someone else made. These are not yet fired, but I think I did a decent job. We'll see what they look like when they come out of the kiln.

My SO and I have been renting space at the maker space, but he has been cleaning out his basement and I have set up a workbench in my garage, so we plan to shift to working at our homes while retaining our membership at the maker space so we still have access to the kiln and glazes.

And that's where things stand right now. Future posts (assuming I stick with this) will move both forward and backward in time, so we can see where I have been and maybe where I am going as well.