Carved bottle

Small carved bottle. This one is less than 6 inches tall and fully carved. I used my new photo soft light box to take the photo. I need to work on making a gradated back drop for it next.

One big vase and skull pendants

Hooray! I finally got a tall vase to come out without cracking. It stands around 23.625 inches tall. Yes, I try to be exact. I wasn't too happy about the shape before I glazed it, but I'm ok with it now.

From big to little. I'm also working on carving up more pendants. Above you see hand carved and underglaze painted girly skulls. One is a vampire (the one on the bottom right). They're cute. I'm going to try to carve a few more and I have a few more designs in mind.

This weekend, we're doing another noborigama wood firing. Hope to get a few carved pendants in that firing and a few more big vases.

Pictures to follow!

Painted pendants/bookmark 'beads'

Instead of building more dragons last night, I decided to paint pendants. They're a long time coming. Some of these will head to Lisa as soon as they are fired and glazed.


Here's the dog from above. I got inspired by Dash of weefurries fame. He's a doll of a dachshund.

Glazing a big pot tonight (if it's out of the bisque). Shino for the win!

Danish White with Sand Vase 1

So, I tried to make a few wall hanging vases, but all my Glacia clay was way too hard. So, it's now soaking and hopefully softening up.

Instead of making more dragon ring holders, I decided to make a new stacker. This is a 3 piece stacker and should be about 17.5 to 17.75 inches tall once it's done. I think the next one I make will be a four piece one.

I'm actually a bit happier with this one than with the others. It's smoother on the inside and the shape is pretty nice.

Hopefully, my practicing these stackers will help me be a bit more confident in making them and I'll get better at making them. And possibly get happier with them!

Noborigama wood firing results

Overall, we had a really good firing. The pieces came out were beautiful. Unfortunately, my two tall vases did not survive...

My 'alpha' vase died. The crack was pretty impressive.

View of the interior.

This vase made me very happy. There is this beautiful halo around the symbol. I thought all was good, however, as I was carrying it into my condo, I heard a "tink" sound and...

There ya have it, another impressive crack. I will be making more tall vases, but I think I'll be using a different clay and firing it differently. So sad.

Yet, in all this, I did get some really nice results for the wall hanging ikebana vases. These shapes are fun to make. I will definitely be making more of them.

Finally, my mermaid. At long last, she is done, and I couldn't be happier with how she turned out. She got glossy where I wanted her to be glossy and as you can see below

She got some nice jewels of glass and celadon blue in her crown.

As an added bonus, she got a nice ash drip on her elbow.

So, although I lost two nice vases, I'm very pleased with the results.

Dragon Ring holders

Been meaning to make these for a long time. However, I got bored after making 3. Must make more!

Some of these will go into the next wood/soda firing on Thanksgiving weekend.

AND, we spend last Thursday and Friday firing the noborigama kiln. So fun. Tonight, we get to open it up. And of course, I forgot my camera at home. Oh well, will use my camera phone for the unloading and then take some 'nice' photos when I get my pieces home.

another vase and bowls completely fired

The latest tall vase. I'm not completely happy with the esthetics of it. I feel like I'm sacrificing good shape and design for size. So, I think I'll be working on making slightly smaller vases and doing the whole shaping thing. They'll be more typical vases, not ones used for ikebana.

11 of the bowls above are from that run of 16 big bowls I made. The two black bowls at the top are from previous firings. The 3 green are glazed with celadon. 2 of them are black. One is black and red.

Now, the bright white bowls with little bits of red were all glazed with copper red, but as you can see, they are not red. The glaze was too thin. Where the glaze pooled in the center is thicker and so it turned red. Hopefully, these will sell.

Woodfiring this week. I cannot wait! Hope to upload some photos of the firing and I'll definitely post photos of the results.

Ikebana wall hangers

A few cleaned up, keyholed and lips cut into some ikebana wall hanger pots. After firing, I think they'll 'stand' between 4 - 8 inches tall. But don't quote me on that. I've brought them inside in the hopes I can get them dry enough for firing by next Tuesday.

Hard to see the key hole shaped holes. I hope that they are big enough for the screws. I might be carving them out a bit more once the pieces dry out completely.

Big ole vase and some carved bowls

Here's a vase. It's a stacker made from 4 cylinders. I wasn't too happy with how it was looking, so, first I 'dinged' it a bit with a wooden stick tool. Still wasn't happy with it, so I cut out some holes in the neck.

I didn't cut the same number of holes into the neck on each side. There are either 1 or 2 holes on each side.

By the time this is fired it should stand about 20 inches tall. 12% is the usual shrink rate, but that's when you get the clay to cone 10 (about 2345 degrees). However, I'm planning to wood fire this, so the temperature is higher and this might shrink a good bit more.

And I needed to carve up some bowls that have been sitting around for a long time. Wasn't up to doing a lot of carving, but I figure some 'big' rather than intricate delicate work was called for last night.