A couple of new vases with slipware decor

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a good Memorial Day!
We went up to Maine and spent some time at the camp there for a few days. Hoping to spend a few weeks there this summer.
Ready to get back to work and to do some pottery.

New bowls

New bowls

New vases

New vases...

New ware

New plate...

This bowl was made from reclaim and as it turned out, a wall hanging hook found its way into the clay. It fired nicely and the hook added to the decoration!

Little slipware bowl.
Have been doing a lot of pieces with slip decoration lately. My favorite bowl is a Winchcombe pottery bowl with white slip under a blue glaze with scraffito to take off some of the blue and show the white. Still working on that...

Nothing like Spring!

This is the flowering crabapple tree off our deck. One week of incredible color and fragrance! Emptied the kiln this morning. Will hopefully have some pots to display very soon.

Have been taking a decoration course with Diana Fayt on the internet. I have not had time to do all the exercises she has been putting out there for us, but I did take a cork from a wine bottle and altered it to make a stamp and then used underglazes. I also made one stamp that I like very much. The sky is the limit, but ...So much clay, so little time....

New vase

Pugged out a bit of clay last night and threw a vase (a-la Leach tradition form and decoration.) It will be a great day when the throwing, decoration and glazing all come together for me. Thanks to anyone reading, and I hope all is well!

Break from pottery on the Chesapeake

It's great to do pottery, but sailing on the Chesapeake in Scott's, my friend and colleague, boat is pretty cool as well. Anyone who has ever been out in 10-12 knot winds with practically no one else out on the Bay can attest to the exhiliration of having the sail fully trimmed and the boat practically sailing itself through the water.
Back to work today...

New Pots

Here's some new plates. Time for spring!

"Say hello to my littl' frien'" (a la Al Pachino)

My Peter Pugger has arrived...Look out all you clay scraps that have been accumulating for the past 10 years or so...
Now all I need is a new power outlet since the thing breaks the circuit every time I fire it up!
Very excited to be able to mix clay from dry ingredients!

My new pugmill

Anxiously awaiting the Peter Pugger...
Just purchased enough dry clay to make pots for the next year or so.
Really enjoying all those of you who are blogging away.

Thanks to Gary for his sharing. This sure beats group therapy.

Here's the latest firing. Trying some new underglazes over white slip. Also wanted to make a series of creamers. Again, the handling of a piece is such an important asthetic and functional detail.
Cheers to everyone...

New class and new pugmill

Took the plunge and signed up for Diana Fayt's online workshop on decorating. She does wonderful work, and I love the way she uses color and lines. I'm pretty psyched to get started. I have a new appreciation for decoration. It's funny how you move from trying to get one thing right in the craft of pottery only to realize that there is a whole world of techniques that makes a pot wonderful rather than just another pot.
In other local news, I purchased a Peter Pugger VPM-9. I asked to purchase a used one, but the new price was about the same, so I went for it. I have buckets of scrap clay that I have tried for sometime to reclaim, but either I can't mix it well enough even when it stays in slop for long periods, or I can't wedge it enough to get it right, and adding ball clay still doesn't always get me to the place where it is suitable for throwing. (How about that for rationalizing buying the pugger?) Hope it works on my wife... :) As one of my mentors used to say, if you start buttoning a vest on the wrong hole, no matter what else you do, it won't turn out correctly. I feel the same way with reclaiming clay. I think I've tried everything else. I hope the pugger gives me the results I desire. I'm sure I'll have to practice with that as well. Any and all suggestions appreciated.
Hope everyone is well out there. Thanks to all the pottery bloggers who do so well with making films and educating everyone. It is a great encouragement to me. All the best...

A night in the office

Just finished seeing my last patient of the evening. Hoping to get home to glaze some bisque ware that I pulled over the week-end. Spent part of the day between patients studying a Bernard Leach vase that I wanted to try to imitate in form. I tried to do it by memory, and it was all wrong. I went back to the original picture and realized that I had been completely "fooled" by the form into thinking that it was wider at the base than at the throat, but in fact, the diameters were essentially the same! The illusion was created by the form gently undulating. Also the undulation is farther up the form than I remembered. The point of all this (besides my memory problems) is that the artistry of form is actually the ability to create a simple illusion even to one who is a somewhat careful observer. The form was "right." I exaggerated the dimensions in my mind's eye.

Raku bottle with copper glaze

Copper raku glaze. The "hot side" turned out well. The lesson I learned was to rotate the pots in the kiln. (Duh!) Anyway, I'm still learning these things.

Newer pots

Latest firing

Still having trouble figuring out how to edit this blog, but I am undeterred.
I am grateful for all the people on blogs that I follow for taking the time to post pictures of their work and stories. Very inspirational but also comforting to hear of both artists' struggles and successes.

I reclaimed a batch of clay and have been wedging it and using it to make press molded dishes. (It is not quite good enough in consistency to throw, but it is fine for hand-building.) My son is taking a hand-building course at Millersville University this Spring, so I am hoping to learn some techniques from him as he progresses.

I'll post some pictures when the kiln finishes in a few days.

Thanks!

New Mugs and Bowls