Sculpture Raku vase, teapot & coffee jar

Last night was spent throwing Sculpture Raku clay, making items for friends and fun. Above is a teapot. Yes, it will be a big teapot and probably not very functional since the opening is pretty small. Should be fun to add bits and pieces to it.

Decided to make a coffee jar for a friend. It looks smaller than the one she has (I think), but might be wider.

Spout for the teapot and lids for both the jar and the teapot.


Finally, a stacked vase. I'm having issues making big enough vases and getting shapes that I actually like. Still not satisfied with this one.

These won't be wood fired. They'll be glazed and fired to cone 10 at our studio.

I'm back!

So, I did take some time off right after the Christmas sale and then, I decided to do some fun stuff first. I've also been working on some new work for the wood soda kiln. I made 4 wall hangers and 2 vases for the last firing at the end of January. They turned out great! Pictures to come.

But, first the fun stuff. Here is a lizard/dragon jar.


And my latest sculpture. it's female. I'm kind of happy with some of the folds. I actually feel like I got some right. But once, I had that feeling, the next fold just didn't seem to work as well.

Here's the back side.


I'm also working on stackers for some future wood soda firings. I didn't really care for the shape of this one, so I added a heart cut out to it. It's hard to fit it back into the cutout if the shape isn't completely symmetrical. But, I managed to make it work.


More wall hanging vases. This time, I threw the upright. Tonight, I will head back and 'throw' trim the bottoms to get that nice closed shape. Let's see if this works better than the throwing upside down type.

Wood fired vase and pendants

The noborigama wood firing over the Thanksgiving weekend was a success for me. My carved Southern Ice pendants turned out fantastic! The one above and the one below had some bronzing flashing slip painted into the details The photographs do not show the bits that turned bronze.

Well, you can see a bit of the bronze in the heart.

In the following pendants, I brushed on a bit of pumice celadon glaze and then wiped away some of the glaze from the high points. The pooling of the glazed in the carved areas really made me happy.

The one above was placed higher up in the kiln, in the path of the flame and got a nice amount of contrast as a result.

This pendant was below the path of the flame and so, did not get as much color contrast. It did get some nice peach colored flashing.

One of my favorites. Higher in the kiln, and so more contrast in color. The thinner areas where the celadon has pulled are translucent. Love it when you can see the shadow of your fingers behind it when you hold the pendant up to the light.

I really liked this pendant, and so, I decided to keep it. I think that the design can be adjusted to look either like a bird or a dragon.

And finally, a wood fired vase that survived! Yay!!! I used a different clay this time, so it survived. And I like the shape of the vase better.

I've got a sale this weekend, so I will be taking photos of that and posting them later.

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!

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!