Mermaid with arms!

Having gone through some older posts, I realized I never posted a photo of the Mermaid with her arms. So, here she is.

Also, I forgot to take a photo of the seahorse boat. Not too keen on it. There's definite room for improvement.

Last night was fun. Aside from making the boat, I was able to do some raku with a student's piece. Learned a little more about firing the bigger raku kiln (keeping it slow, doing a final burst of reduction at the end to get the color of the pot right (color in terms of how hot the pot is, not how the glaze will be) as well as how much more paper I need to add to the burn barrel at the end.

All in all, a good night.

More bowls

More bowls thrown. The three on the top row are mine.

Here is a bigger bowl and a base, thrown for a friend on her request.

Here are the bowls trimmed and drying. The middle one is the base and the big bowl.

Will be working on a seahorse boat tonight. Then, nothing much for the next few weeks because I'm off to Hawaii!

And one of the bowls from the previous post jumped off the bat and plunged to its squishy death. So, I'm down a bowl. It's all good. Some bowls are just not meant to be.

Oh, and the Mermaid is at the wood kiln. She lost a part of her tail before being bisque fired, but I was able to reattach it. Keep your fingers crossed that the tail stays on when she is final fired!

Where does the time go???

Hello! Yes, it has been quite some time since I've updated this blog. I'd say I was busy, but I was only a bit busy.

I attended the Spring sale in May and took a break from pottery after that. Not much of a break, mind you, but nevertheless, a break. I also went to Ireland for 5 days which did eat into some pottery making time.

Ah well, enough excuses.

Above you see are some bowls I threw last weekend. I had my parents over to my new condo and realized I had no serving bowls whatsoever! Silly me. I had sold all my bowls. And since bowls are such a big seller at sales, I decided to make more.

Usually, I work on commission pieces first and then work on sale stuff. This means I'm always facing a crunch around the sale time. This time, I decided to make a ton of bowls and other stock and then, right before the sale, I will work on commission pieces (egg cups for Emma and Lisa, a popover holder for Tina, and some ikebana vases for a friend's boyfriend's mom...)

So, that's my plan. I'll try to do better about keeping you updated on this!

The Mermaid in between stages

Her body after attaching all the pieces and making the tail



The start of her head. Noses and lips are getting easier... eyes can be an issue, but... using Phillippe Faraut's technique, this is the result.

With hair and a crown added...

The back side. Instead of pulling big long snaky types of strands of hair, I used a slab this time. Cut the slab into strips, twisted and cleaned the edges a bit and let them dry a tad before adding them to the head.

Here she is with her body. Arms will be done next week.

More about the sake cups

Hehe, I love leaving you in suspense, Lisa!

Over the weekend, I glazed 75 sake cups matte black. 18 bisqued cups are left over and I've thrown 57 more. Still need to trim them today. The remaining cups will be glazed with Chun, a milky white kind of glossy glaze.

Now, I can start throwing bowls for the sale on May 1st and 2nd. Hooray? Hahaha And I need to finish up a mermaid sculpture.

Ok, how's that Lisa? Does it stop the suspense? hehe

Oh, and I still have to take and post photos of the last wood soda fire results. So little time these days!

More sake cups

Ok, Lisa, this post is just for you!

My cousins finally decided on what color they wanted the sake cups to be. Today... So, I wasn't trying to keep you in suspense at all. It wasn't my fault!!!

Now, I know that I threw at least 75 cups. 4 were glazed and sent to my cousin as test samples. However, when I counted the number of bisqued cups I had in my possession and added those 4 already mentioned, I came up with 68 cups. Some how 7 cups have disappeared. Not sure how.

I've already thrown and trimmed 19 more and did 12 more tonight (one might be disqualified because it was quite wobbly). My back started to ache and along with some pretty bad forearm pain, I decided to throw a bottle with the rest of the clay on my wheel and just leave it at 12 cups and one bottle tonight.

More trimming tomorrow and perhaps more throwing. Depends on this ole body o' mine.

The beginnings of the Mermaid

There you go. The beginnings of the mermaid sculpture. That's her tail on the right. I really need to round it out more to give her a more organic feel... The other parts will be her body. Oh, and the flipper part of her tail hasn't been added yet.

In other news, I'm really falling behind in the sake cup production. I have 75 made. 4 were glazed as samples to send to my cousin so he and his bride could decide on colors. Now, I have to make about 75 more (the total is down from 200 to 140. BUT, it's good to make extras.)

So, I hope to do that this weekend.