Vampire Skull bottle

 

 Last night, I finished up the last skull bottle (for now!) I decided that I 'needed' a Vampire skull bottle in my group of skellies. And so, I started. Now, I fully intended to take photos of the sculpture in progress, but got distracted talking to everyone and ended up only with the beginning and the end.

And here you go. Now, I'm not too keen on the eye sockets and cheek bones. Now that I look at it, I think I need to thicken up the cheekbone on top rather than on the bottom. At any rate, I'm happy with this. And, I think I need to make more. A lot more!

Skull bottles

The other day, I went to a friends house and saw some sugar skull bottles of alcohol. (I don't know what alcohol is in them and I don't want to assume it is tequila). But, it made me think... Why haven't I made some skull bottles? Duh!

So, after throwing 7 mug bodies, I decided to throw bottles. I was going to make three bottles out of 1.125 lbs of clay, but the first one turned out too large (same size as the leftmost skull vase). I wanted smaller ones. Bud vases! And so, I wedged up the remaining bits of clay and threw 3 bottles of the mound. And then got bored... there are only so many things I can throw off the mound before I'm just done. I threw a bigger bottle out of the last bit of clay.

Now, one of the tiny bottles died while I was trying to sculpt a skull. So, I ended up with 2 small ones instead of three. I still have to finish the last bigger bottle, but I didn't have time to finish it. That will happen later. And I'll post photos of that one too.

I plan to underglaze these skulls with the sugar skull patterns. However, they do look more like aliens than skull. I think I need to work on the design a bit.

Pasta bowls, yarn bowls, a bottle/vase and a strainer

Last night was a bit like Christmas. I got a lot out of the kiln. The bowls above are for a friend out in Texas. I wasn't too happy with all the gold specks that came out on them, but it is the nature of the glaze (when it cools down too slowly) and well, my friend likes them. Hooray!

My newest yarn bowls came out and for once, did not collapse. Yes, I have finally figured out how to make these things. I should be getting one more out in this week's firing.

Above is a big ole strainer for a friend who is moving to Austin. She gave me all of her left over clay, so I decided to use it to make something for her. She wanted a strainer for when she makes lasagna, so there you go. Big strainer.

Then, I decided to try to throw 7 lbs at one time. It was not easy and I'm not as happy with the final result. I think that I will continue to stack columns of clay when I want to throw big. It's easier on my body and for me, easier to control the clay.