Glaze experimenting

After the surprising glaze results when Amy from the pottery club put satin white over the top of tenmoku and produced the leopard print, I have been wanting to try a few other things. Here is the next result which is lavender over the top of tenmoku, drizzled over with an eyedropper. It gave a sort of bronze effect, except for the inside where it pooled at the bottom and showed the lavender in an almost metallic look.

Expect more in the weeks ahead.

It isn't about making a sale

Well that's what I keep telling myself. Yes our club had it's first market stall on Easter Saturday. It was a success. We sold around 30 items in the four hours we were open for business. I only had three items I felt were good enough to sell. The other members involved had a lot more pieces up for sale and I was excited to see many of their creations get sold. Yes I did sell two of my three items. But they were purchased by people who knew me in the last minutes of the market. It's not the same as unknown people loving my work so much that they want to pay money for it and take it home. I think there will be another opportunity in three months time. I will have more quantity and more variety. It was a great experience to work together with the other members of the club to promote our club. I am disappointed I didn't properly sell anything. But as I told my cousin who travelled all the way here from Melbourne to compete in the drag racing last night only to drop out due to a radiator problem...there's always next time.

Finished bird bowls

Out of the kiln this week...

The pottery club will be having a stall on Easter Saturday. I'm happy enough with my bowls now to actually put some up for sale. I'm going to put up these two plus the cockatiel bowl which should come out of the kiln this week.

Mixed bag

A variety of finished and unfinished projects to showcase. First up, a new necklace with a leaf...

Then the experimental bowls which all began with me accidentally poking a hole in a freshly turned bowl and having to decide what to do with it...

I really like the one with the flowers, which was the one I put my finger through. There are a number of flaws with the other bowl. It is too thick at the base and doesn't look so great inside, as the little circles I inserted don't sit perfectly due to the cut out circles in the bowl being narrow at the top and thick at the lower part. If that makes sense.
Finally, an unfired item I'm super happy with...

I think it must be the biggest bowl I've thrown yet, great shape, not too heavy. And I've managed to create a parrot that is much more in proportion than anything I've attempted before. Call it a cockatiel if you like. That's what I was aiming for. I find I have much more success by looking at a cartoon character of a bird than by looking at my actual real life birds. My goal is to come up with the "idea" of an animal rather than getting all the details into the clay.

Improvements

Ron Philbeck's cute little birds on some of his work inspired me to get back into putting birds on my bowls. These bowls are much improved from the bowls I was making when I added birds previously. I am so happy with the shape and they are even lighter in weight, especially the base which is often too heavy. The custom made wooden rib tools by Troy Bungart make shaping the inside of the bowls a delight. And Jayne's guidance in turning the edge of the base has done wonders for the outside of the bowl. A bit of underglaze on the birds and into the kiln next week!

Mistake to masterpiece

Last week I threw two roundish pots and as I was closing the tub, my thumb slipped off the catch and into one of the pots. Disaster you might think. No, I had a week to think about it and came up with a cunning plan. Jayne wasn't quite sure what I was up to today but I just said ah wait and see. So I turned the base on the wheel then flipped over the pot. I surveyed last week's damage and sourced a suitable cutting tool. I cut a hole in the side of the pot where the mistake was, rolled out some other clay on the slab roller and used my cake icing plungers to make two sizes of flowers. I used these to fill the hole. Mistake no more. I prefer masterpiece. I headed out into the 45 degrees Celcius heat and after a fifteen minute drive arrived home just in time to avoid a wild dust storm.

Acquisition..a Jayne Bawden original

You know when you see a painting or a piece of ceramics and you MUST have it? Well it was one of those moments when I saw Jayne's raku pot. Check it out...

It's so gorgeous! One day I hope to try out the raku process although not on this scale. This pot is 21cm high by 19cm wide to give you an idea of its size. I'm nowhere near making pots that large. I'm satisfied admiring my new acquisition.