You Can What!?

Nobody told me that we could do this!

Image transfer can be as simple as painting a tinted slip onto a piece of foam...

Wrap it around a green piece and ....

I'm Hooked!

There is a back story that goes with this... but until then....

Struggles of Love

This series was done in all playfulness mixed with a dash of beaming Love… we live to create.

Oh yeah... they aren't poly wogs.

Slipped Rim

This project spun out of this winter’s bowl marathon for the Tidewater Gallery’s annual soup feed. I throw about 7 batches total, 10 to 17 bowls at a time and break these down into smaller separate groups for handling the surface decoration. This is how I generally prefer to create my work. I enjoy working in series of 5 -15 pieces at a time, this lets me explore any new idea or technique a little before drawing any initial conclusions and making any changes in my approach.
This started with a big 3 gallon bucket of white slip I made using the trimmings from my standard white clay body. The trimmings were added to the water and allowed to soak overnight. After a night of soaking I mixed it up with my trusty paint mixer on a drill and added a tablespoon of deflocculate (sodium silicate) and more water until the slip reached the consistency of a thick heavy cream. The sodium silicate lets the clay platelets to slide over each other easier so I don’t have to add so much water to the mix to get the slip to the consistency I want.
Next, I had an idea of what I wanted to try… might work, might not. Going to find out though. So I made some thumbnail sketches to keep me pointed in a direction. I’ll usually have 2 or 3 experiments going on at any one time and I have a tendency to become easily distracted. I’ve learned it’s a good idea to leave a trail of bread crumbs leading back to the project at hand.

With this idea, I’m using a contrasting red

stoneware clay for the body and I’ve applied a simple paper stenciled sponged cobalt slip design around the lower half of the belly.
After the stenciled design has dried sufficiently to gently handle, I invert the bowl and pour the slip over the upper half.

I really like the effect and I’m excited about trying a dynamic gaze combination I’ve been thinking about…

stay tuned...

Click below to view the process.

SteamGear Cup Part 2

This is a video shot last night in the studio as I worked on testing this series of stencils. Sometimes these just don't work as well in real life as they do in my head. The gear designs worked really well though, they laid down well on the compound curved surfaces up the cup without bunching up and they nicely fit into the space. Whoo ho!

This is the process of applying the newsprint stencils to the surface of a freshly thrown cup that's still attached to the wheel head. The stencils are adhered to the surface by spritzing the surface of the cup with water and laying the stencil in place. A gentle pressing with a damp sponge sets the stencil in to place.

A contrasting colored clay slip is then sponged over the entire design. This slip was colored with cobalt oxide, this will fire to a wonderful blue that will influence any glaze that applied over it.

Now I can set back an get a feel how the new stencils have worked. I'll cut a foot on the bottom after it stiffens overnight.

Playing with Novel Formats for Etsy Listings

I started pasting together a handful of these demo pages last month using a few the spare photos Andor and I had taken this summer. I thought these paste-ups might be a novel addition to my Etsy shop pages and I needed to explore different ways communicating some of the processes I use to create my work.

This seems to be a recurring theme this year. In all the different venues I'm currently working with, figuring out how to show customers what happens in the studio seems to make a huge difference in customers perceptions and how they value my finished work.

I'll post a few of these on slow nights.