What I've been up to

Yup, a whole year since I last posted.  You'd think I wasn't very good at this blogging thing.

As usual, I stopped doing pottery in the winter.  My studio is an unheated woodshed and while I can heat the shed decently with the space heater, the clay freezes and becomes difficult to work with.  Not to mention how unpleasant it is to be wet and muddy in the cold.

But over the summer I had another burst of creation. Of course I made the usual bowls and mugs.  I've also gotten some new glazes.  I'm loving how the two of these combine to create a cascading effect.

I've also been messing with some new carving techniques.  This mug has a lot of texture carved into the bottom half of it.  Then the glaze I chose flows over it making a waterfall effect.  I suppose it would be more of a waterfall effect if I had used a brown.  Oh well, live and learn.

And I've moved on to making almost all of my mugs "super mugs".  They each tend to hold about 3 cups.  It seems like the giant mugs are the ones that everyone reaches for and I seem to sell them as soon as I have them in stock, so, makin more!

Personally, I find hearts really cheesy.  There's nothing wrong with them, the style just isn't for me.  But I had a couple of bowls sitting there, fresh from the wheel, and I pulled out one end and pushed in another, voila!  Valentine's day bowls!

I do still like doing the other carving style and have discovered a use for some horrible dark gray glaze that I've purchased.  No matter how much I hate a glaze, I can't seem to throw it out until I've actually used it up.  And I tend to buy glazes a lot to try them out so I have a ton of glazes in my cupboard that I don't like.  But anyway, I found that if I put the gray glaze on mugs with this carving style and then clean it off, I sits in the grooves.  Then this clear blue glaze goes over it and you get a kind of tiki effect.  Yay finding uses for crappy stuff!

A friend of mine was sitting with me while I was throwing and she requested goblets.  Goblets of all shapes and sizes.  Just goblet after goblet after goblet.  These are all thrown in one piece.  It makes it much faster and the final product is better.  When I make them in 2 pieces, the top never seems to go with the bottom and it gets all wonky.  Oh, and notice the pink with the gray rim.  I hate the gray and I hate the pink, but they work pretty well together.

And I've been messing with some other new shapes and textures.

And then of course the agateware that I'm known for.  I keep thinking I'm going to stop making this, and then I make more.

So this summer was mostly spent experimenting.  Experimenting with new textures, new shapes, several new glazes, and at the moment I'm firing a little hotter than I have in the past.

I'm pretty much packed up for the winter again but hopefully I'll get out there once or twice in the upcoming months.

Oh, and I have a craft fair coming up this weekend.  Wish me luck!