Blue-Grey Salad Set

Blue-Grey Salad Bowl Set
Red/white mix clay; Hobbit Hazel Glaze; 4 individual salad bowls at 7.5" diameter and 2.5" high, plus 1 large bowl at 9.5" diameter and 3.5" high

This was my second attempt ever at making a SET of dishes, back in August

I made the four salad bowls by throwing them as if they were plates (with somewhat flat bottoms) and then raising the sides a ton to create some depth for the bowls. I then flattened out the rim with my hand and a wooden rib.
I used a small wooden dowel to create the trio of ridges in each rim as well.
I'm pretty happy with how consistent the salad bowls came out... especially since I made 2 one day, 1 the next, and 1 the next (since I had a couple... accidents with some tries.)
A few days later I made a much larger bowl that I thought would go nicely with the set so I added the trio of ridges to make it match. That bowl is much deepter (concave inside instead of partly concave and partly convex.) Unfortunately, it warped a little bit in the kiln (yes, I'm blaming the kiln and not myself.) but still matches mostly

I used the Hobbit Hazel glaze because a) it is beautiful, b) it responds well to edges and texture, c) it doesnt crackle... since crackle glazes arent good for dishware, and d) it rocks my clayworld

1st day of Kindergarden for Potters (my first mug)

Large Shino Mug
White clay; Shino glaze; 4" diameter and 4" tall
This was actually the first mug I ever made. The only reason I hadnt posted it yet was that it was at the office holding my coffee most days until recently.
She has a twin... but her twin is somewhat deformed. I keep him in the basement.
I used a glaze called Shino on this. It is a very drippy glaze that shows a lot of variation - so I didnt actually paint the rim brown, thats just how this glaze behaves. Anywhere there is an edge or a high-point (from which the glaze moves away,) it is brown/red. Anywhere the glaze pools, it is tan/yellow.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMug

Lithium Bird-Matte Belly Mug
red/white clay mix; bird matte orange glaze with lithium glaze on upper and handle; 4.5" tall and 4" diameter

I like mugs. Mugs mugs mugs.

Check out the buddha belly on this dude.

The lithium glaze I put on the top was only on about an inch of the top, but it dripped down very far (thats cool, i'm down with that.) The stuff on the handle dripped down so much it actually left a small puddle in the kiln! But some of what dripped got suspended in a permanent-droplet...

Dripping Petal Bowls
White clay; interior glazed in Mint Creme covered by Randy's Red, outer Randy's Red; 3.5" wide by 2" tall
Acquired by the collection of Mr. C Stanvick of the Back Bay
Umm, if I could fall in love with a semi-utilitarian piece of tableware then these would be in my bed with me each night. I had seen my glazing teacher do a bowl with this mint/red combination and that it had made some beautiful patterns on her piece, so I wanted to try it one something of mine.
I had made these little bowls in my apartment in September, during the month when I didnt go to the studio. I couldnt quite keep away from the clay :) These are just made from rolling out clay into a flat square, cutting slits on each side and then folding the corners upward.
The glaze is tricky - both the mint and red are VERY drippy, and the drippyness is magnified when one is on top of the other. That is why I only did that affect on the inside - otherwise it would have spilled all over the kiln. So the glazes dripped together down the petals/sides of the bowls and pooled in a really unique way at the bottom. This is definitely an affect I will use again

Glaze and I got in a fight. It's ok, we've made up now.

Large Hobbit Hazel Fruit Bowl with Bird Matte Accents
red/white clay mix; half glazed in bird matte and half in hobbit hazel, then all re-glazed in hobbit hazel; 9" diameter and 5" tall
Well... this one was a doozy. I actually loved this bowl when I threw it - at the time it was one of the biggest things I had ever made. It had a deep center and a slightly flared lip. I tried to do a glaze pattern I had seen someone in the studio do - mix bird matte (a matte light orange color) with hobbit hazel (a textured brown/blue color) and they would make neat colors. Unfortunately, I totally screwed up the bird matte and the whole thing looked pretty sh*tty.
SO I decided to re-glaze the whole thing in hobbit hazel, trying to salvage it. I heated up the bowl really hot ( so that the new glaze wouldnt just slide off the surface) and dipped it in the vat of glaze. THUNK. I heard a deep thunk as I dipped it... as if the temperature differential forced the bowl to crack. When I took it out I didnt SEE a crack... so I continued on and put it in to be fired. Well, I was right, the ceramic spit down about two-thirds the height of one of the sides. Pretty intense. The bowl is now useless as a show piece, and cant be used generally in a functional way by anyone but myself (who will overlook this huge imperfection for the sake of just having more pottery in her apartment.)

Oh well... live and learn. Next time I will NOT be heating stuff up quite so much.

A tea set (my first "cutesy" thing)

Child's Rainbow Tea Set
Red/white clay mix; white glaze outer with golden green (yellow), forrest green (green), raspberry (pink), and noxema (blue) accents;
tea pot 4" wide, 6.5" long, 5" tall; 4 saucers 3.25" diameter by .75" tall; 4 tea cups 2.75" diameter by 2.5" tall
Gift to the Collection of Miss Isabella Mullally of Seattle
I had seen a couple people in the studio make tea pots and thought it'd be really fun to make a tea set. Of course, making a tea set that looks really polished and clean is pretty hard, so I decided to start with a kid's set since that would be easier and a little more fun.

I threw all of the saucers and tea cups all at once "off the hump," which means having one big mound of clay where I take the top and make one little thing, cut it off, then use the next top part of the big hump, etc. It's basically a fast and efficient way to make several small pieces. When they were bisque-fired, I dipped them each in white glaze and then painted the inside of each cup with a different color. I also painted a circle with each matching color on the saucers so that each cup has a mate. ADORABLE, if I say so myself.

I made the tea pot just like a bowl that curves in at the top, threw the lid like a very shallow bowl, and then the spout like a tiny vase that is extremely narrow at the top. and then after they were each leather-hard and trimmed, I assembled them. All of the handles are strips of clay cut from a 1/4 inch slab I rolled out, curved into small circles and attached to the cups/pot. Originally I had actually made one GIANT circle for the pot handle but it looked super weird (and too fragile) so at the last minute I scraped/chipped it off and made the three little circles. I'm much more happy with that since it is so cute and also ties it better to the cup designs. This was also dipped in the white glaze, and I painted bits of each of the 4 cup colors inside the lid and body to tie it back to the whole set.

This is going to my niece Isabella (but Holly, dont show her the pictures! I want it to be a suprise :) ) She's nearly 3 years old and apparently loves tea parties... so I'm hoping she likes it!

The key to success is learning from mistakes... or at least, rolling with them

Growing Mocha Textured Vase
Red/white clay mix; mocha glaze with splattered mint creme overglaze; 8" tall by 4" diameter
While trying to make a fairly large vase, I 'collared in' the top (basically tried to narrow it) and a little flap folded over. but I thought it looked interesting, so I kept it. Then when it was still wet and floppy I pushed a rubber rib into the sides a little to make diagonal indentations... it looks like the thing is sort of growing upwards. That flap easily could have ruined the piece... but I try to take mess-ups and see if I can make them into 'art' :)
I dipped the whole thing in a mocha glaze, and then poured some mint-creme glaze over a couple sections in the middle and top. The mint didnt show through exactly but it did create some really beautiful flowing-texture. HOWEVER, it also made the glaze run a lot and a little bit pooled at the bottom! so sad. I had to use a grinding wheel to get it smoothed out.

I <3 practical pottery

Bird Matte Dinner Bowl
Red/white clay mix; Bird Matte Orange glaze; 7" diameter and 2.5" tall
This bowl is just the right size for a meal-for-one - I am totally in love with the way the glaze moved from the edges of the rim to form red/brown lines, and also from the swirl of the clay in the middle at the bottom. I tried something new here with the foot (bottom,) where it is sort of rounded like a tube, and I kind of like how that turned out.
Biggest fault with this one, though, is that I made the rim too angular at the edge, so it is very susceptible to nicks and chips. When I was trimming it, before the first firing, even then a tiny chip came off the rim. I've learned my lesson, though, so now I'm trying to make rims a little more dulled. I really love this glaze, though, especially on red clay, so I'll probably be doing a bit more of it.

Now that I'm back at the studio...

i'm getting back the rest of the stuff that I glazed in August. I did go in and glaze 16 pieces a few days ago from stuff I had made then as well, so that'll all be out soon :)

Drunken Cowl Bowl
Red/white clay mix; forrest green translucent outer glaze, white and mocha inner glaze; 10" diameter and 2.5" high
I made this one day when I saw some guy (who has been doing this for >40 years) make a really beautiful wide, shallow bowl, and wanted to see if I could make something similar. this came out ok, not as wide as I had hoped. I call it the Drunken Cow Bowl because the inside ended up looking like cow hide, but where the cow was probably drunk and swaying and had green grass stuck to his sides from when he fell over after the 8th shot of tequila.
one big downer on this was that the week this was fired was the week that, unbeknownst to me, the studio managers decided to fire the kiln to a slightly lower temperature but for a longer time... which made the glaze drip down the sides a little too much. So i had to grind some of it off with a grinding stone. oops!