Replenishing

I spent the weekend making those things that are guaranteed sellers. Sponge holders and cheese stones. We were pretty much sold out of both after the League of NH Craftsmen's Fair. After making a bunch of the carved sponge holders, boredom set in and I decided to stamps some using our stamps brought back from South Korea. I had never really used the "dotty" stamp before. I think I will like this little accent. The stamping goes quickly since all the dots are in a row and the stamp has a nice curve to it.

Today was glazing day. Tomorrow we finish loading the kiln. It will be nice to get the heavy work done before the humidity returns with a vengeance on Thursday.

A last minute change of plans

During that gloriously warm weather last weekend, I cleaned my wheel off and hosed down my splash pan. Since everything was so spic and span I decided to spend some time with porcelain. I made a few platters and a couple of tumblers. I was intending to carve them all with ginkgo leaves. After the first platter was done I was feeling bored with the leaves.

I decided that the rest would get stamped and dotted!

After the bisque firing I'll give these babies an inlay of black underglaze. I will probably glaze them in my translucent Temple white glaze...
or maybe gloss green...
or blue??

The gas kiln is cooling today. I am curious to see how my stamped mugs will come out. I went out on a limb with more underglaze experiments. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Get out-a town...

I am heading to Charlotte tomorrow morning for a workshop with Josh DeWeese. I haven't been to a workshop since going to NCECA in 2011. This one is put on by Carolina Claymatters Guild and will be held at Central Piedmont Community College. It's a full day tomorrow and a half day on Sunday. Jeff's niece lives in Mint Hill so I will stay with their family overnight. 

When I signed up for this workshop it seemed like it would be great timing, but of course we are now two days behind our firing schedule due to the freezing temps. Some it is our own fault for not pushing harder and forcing ourselves to stand outside, sand pots, and load the bisque kiln sooner. It will all work out in the end and I am trying not to stress about it.

 I finally got around to photographing some of the porcelain pots that were in the last firing. The cup with the stamped flowers sold in the first two hours it was on Etsy... posting it on facebook hastened the sale!

Next post should be some photos of the workshop. Have a great weekend!

Here comes the bride...

My good friend Bonnie's daughter was married in June of 2012. They had a small ceremony in New York and didn't have a wedding reception until this year. This wedding plate commemorating their special day, came out of our last firing of 2013... in the nick of time for Bonnie to give it to them for Christmas!

I knew I was making it way back in the summer. I am such a procrastinator. Something I should work harder on overcoming this year.

In the past I would stamp the letters and let the glaze pool into to the recesses. The problem with that technique is that if the glaze was too thick the lettering was obliterated. I have now switched to applying black velvet underglaze to the lettering. I am much happier with how it stands out. Next on the list is personalized piggy banks!

Practice Makes Perfect

Jeff is teaching his "Practice Makes Perfect" workshop at our studio this weekend. The workshop focuses on enhancing your skills using production pottery techniques. I call it pottery boot camp. I took this workshop with Jeff nearly ten years ago. I was student at the time with a full time job... I thought my arms might fall off by the end of the weekend!

Needless to say, we need lots of clay ready for the participants. I pugged a whole bunch of clay and the last time through, I attached a die to the pug mill to make smaller lugs of clay.

When you drop these smaller lugs through the harps, pictured below, they are cut to a certain weight. The first harp is one pound, the second 1 1/2 pounds etc...
It saves a lot of time when doing production work. No weighing out balls of clay.

The workshops we teach at our studio are small, 5 to 6 participants. If there is a group that wants to come we can work around your schedule to meet your needs. Jeff also travels to other studios and clay centers to teach. If you are interested in a workshop at our studio or yours, send him an e-mail for more info: jeff@jeffbrownpottery.com.

In between our studio clean up marathon, and pugging clay, I managed to roll out some slabs and make some square soap dishes. They are nice chunky dishes that can be used for other things as well. Typically I just stamp the insides, this time I slipped and carved half of them. They were a nice break from wheel work.

It's been pouring rain off and on here for a couple of days. Tonight they are predicting snow. The snow may actually be a nice break from the rain... did this New Hampshire girl really just say that???

taking the slab dishes a few steps further

stamped the interior and cut the rim with my faceting thingy from mud tools...

added some little feet...

and the end result...

on to rectangles tomorrow!