Studio animals

I often see photos of potters' pets in their studios, and inspired by Gary Rith's recent photos of his wrestling cat and dog, I took a snap of Jayne's new adopted dog Luka wrestling (playfully) with her other dog Stella in the new studio.

Last night I achieved two successful pots on the wheel out of three attempts which was a big improvement on a few weeks ago when I only achieved one success out of four. I envy those who can just get on the wheel and know that an actual pot/bowl will appear before them rather than some warped or lopsided sort of thing.
Thought for the day...I AM on holidays and I WILL get back to hand sculpting clay.

Yes I'm still around

Hmm. Last post May 2014. What can I say? I've been "busy" with other things. Not much pottery to show. Our old premises became unavailable and a new studio is still being built. It is a work in progress but the wheels are plugged in to power and the kiln is fired up. I discovered some items I had neglected to photograph!
So here we go...
An addition to the "collection" I began some time back. I still have plans for more.

A baby owl I made some time ago. Not sure why it was forgotten. Maybe I couldn't get a decent photo of it before I got my good camera.

The makings of another "collection" of which I'm sure there was another one. Expect more.

Ok, now this one has a story. It began as a bowl shape, got lost in the move to the new studio, was forgotten about (by me) before being found in its new form missing about half of its original self. I was going to smash it but Jayne encouraged me to clear glaze and fire it. I actually quite like it as it is now, like some sort of relic.

And of course there will always be more chooks.

New range of pots

I'm obsessed with rounded pots where I bring the opening back in when I'm throwing. And I'm also hooked on the uncoloured look where only clear glaze is used.

Expect more in this range. Shall we call it a "collection"?
Something else I tried out recently was stamping into the clay and painting the underglaze onto the stamped images. Very slow process as I have shaky hands. Cute though.

An example of the "denim" matt glaze. I'm really liking the way touches of green show through the blue.

And I like the way the rim colour "bled" into the main glaze on this pot.

Cookie cutter birds

I forgot I had made these so I was really happy to find they had come out of the kiln. I am loving the clear glaze straight on top of the clay. I am going to make some sort of mobile/hanging thing out of them. I have been in a wobbly stage on the wheel lately, I think from having such a long break away from throwing. Thank goodness I am having more success now.

No idea why the image has rotated and no idea how to fix it!

Ceramic joy from across the seas

Recently I made some purchases from etsy and I love the workmanship so much I feel the need to share.
This graceful bird and cute owl came all the way from Slovenia.

For those who wish to check out more, the link is https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/DeepSilence

And all the way from Israel came this gorgeous bowl complete with adorable lovebirds.

The inside of the bowl is a sparkling blue. I must remember to take a photo from above as well. You can see for yourself at https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/SergioFaingold

December creations

Such a long time since I posted. But I have a lot of creations to share. I collected them last week after spending five days in hospital with pneumonia. Prior to that I had seven days of illness including back pain, fever and hallucinations. Fun. Anyway I am on the mend now and hoping the tests do not reveal the cause to be birds or ceramic dust.
First up, I love the variations that copper rust glaze can produce depending how long you hold the piece in the glaze. Personally I prefer the deeper colour but I like playing with the different shades. Excuse the poorly made larger vessel. Not one of my greater moments on the wheel.

Behold my first ever mug! I was so excited that this turned out. I have used turquoise underglaze, my favourite colour. Also here you can see a project that I have had on my mind for some time, I scratched the lower part of the vase to create a rough texture (I did this during the turning process) and left that part unglazed. I'm really happy with the effect although it's probably difficult to see the texture properly in the photo.

I was ready to go back to basics when I made these three little pots. I needed a rest from the challenge of mugs and vases and wanted to improve my general skills. I had fun colouring them, using turquoise underglaze on the first one and dripping jade underglaze with an eyedropper, apricot underglaze on the second one with turquoise patterns and matt denim glaze on the third one.

Next up, a couple of hand sculpted characters, one based loosely on the anime character Totoro.

And of course yet another bird...

Then there is my attempt at a nativity scene which has been fired without any glaze as I wanted a raw look.

More little birds

My hand sculpting almost always ends up involving birds. So nothing has changed in that department. Out of the kiln came these creations last week.

We are getting a hand raised major Mitchell cockatoo. We got to visit the babies on the weekend. I took photos of course.