Another month comes to a close

Jeff took a road trip to Raleigh on Thursday to deliver mugs to Capitol Broadcasting Company. Each employee receives a handmade mug, from a North Carolina potter, as birthday gift. They choose a different potter each year. This year they chose us to make the mugs. They picked one of my designs.

This is a good project for me because I am not a production potter. If I were paid piece work by a pottery I would never make more than minimum wage. I changed up my handles a little, in order to make things go faster. I am still pulling them off the mug, but now I am extruding the lugs. 

I am definitely getting a little faster at throwing them as well.

We don't have to deliver 600 at once but I do plan to get the order done as quickly as possible. So now my nights are filled with dreams of mug making, along with piggy bank production...

And the occasional dreams of painting.

Tidying up

I knew that eventually it would happen. Dinner guests. The dining room was cleared. The art "stuff" hidden away. The guests spent the night so the bubble wrap was relegated to the entryway, so that they could sleep in the guest bedroom.

This is our life. Good friends understand us and embrace the quirkiness that is our home... and they ignore the dust.

Clearing Space

My kitchen peninsula has been a mess since I started using it at as my painting space. Yesterday I decided it needed to be cleared off. It's often our lunch space and lately there has been no room for eating there.

It looks so much better!

Except that now it's all on the dining room table...

We rarely eat in there so I have a little more time to get organized. It won't happen today.
The clay is calling and there are piggy banks that need assembling.

Funky Sunflowers

I finished another alcohol ink painting. I have been calling this one "Funky Sunflowers". It also was embellished using a Sakura Microperm pen - 01, like the last "flower" painting. It's interesting that most alcohol based pens (Sharpie or Bic) will smear over the inks. The Micron pens also smeared. I am a lefty so it's really important for me not to have pens that smear easily. The Microperm didn't smear while I was working and it doesn't rub off after a few hours either. Other pens, 24 hours later, could still rub off. I learned this tip from CeeCee Creations on youtube. She has a lot of great painting tutorials, both alcohol ink and watercolor. Even though she said the other pens would rub off, I did some testing myself. Sure enough, she was correct!

It took me a few days to do this one, even though it is small (5"x 7"). I did the background one evening and the flowers the next day. Stems and leaves were added on the third. I had to work out the "doodles" on a separate practice sheet. I finally committed to a plan and completed the work last night. I am pretty happy with this one and I think I will mat and frame it.

Vessel Sink

A recent customer sent us a photo of their vessel sink, installed in their newly remodeled bathroom. It's very rewarding to see how beautiful they look in the setting they were intended for!

This "nuka" white glaze is definitely the best seller. Check out Jeff's Etsy shop to see more of the vessel sink styles that he can create. Special order sinks typically take about 6 weeks to complete. We often have a few that are in stock and ready to go. We have shipped all over the USA and as far away as Saudi Arabia.
Jeff Brown Pottery on Etsy