Earthy

I've been working on glazing pieces with some different combinations lately. I just posted some of my favorites that came out of my combo mambo tile testing. I never know how something is going to turn out when I do this, so it's always exciting to layer glazes in ways I haven't tried before. For all the duds that result, it's worth it for the few great combinations that I discover.

I've been trying to come up with some glazes using darker color combinations like dark green, rust, brown and black.

Here are a few of my recent favorites. All of these items are posted in my Etsy shop.


Black, blue and brownish black


Metallic black over brown black.


Green and rust.

Happy Mother's Day

I've been working on a series of what I call "quoatables" for lack of a better description. I've always been a lover of quotes since I bought John Barlett's book of Familiar Quotations back in high school. I occaisionally look back at that book. Even though the Internet is an amazing resource for quotes, I still buy small books of quotes from time to time. The book I picked up most recently is called Happily Grateful. This Mother's Day I've been thinking about happiness and gratitude. I have had such wonderful day with my family. The kids brought me to tears with their sweet handmade gifts and especially the letters they each wrote to me. I sat on my bed with them all smothering me with love, hugs and kisses; feeling incredibly happy and grateful!

I made a few mugs with quotes about mothers. The quotes are subtle in their appearance which I can't decide if I like or not. I like that it's not screaming the sentiment but I don't want it to be too difficult to read either. I recently bought some slip that I'm going to experiment with some sgraffito work with using the quotes to see if I can produce some different results.

Here are some sample photos of the mother mugs. It's difficult to photograph the quotes as they wrap around the mug. They are much more readable in person than they are in a photograph.

"A mother's love endures through all."

This mug has some carved scroll work interlaced with hearts and the quote wrapped below it.

"A mother's heart is a special place where children always have a home."

Multipurposing

Ah - a new use for that warming drawer in my kitchen. It serves as a great adhesive dryer!

Don't Forget Mother's Day Treasury

It's always nice to be in someone's Etsy Treasury.

complimentary glaze

I like the way these sesame beets look in this bowl. The deep red/purple color brings out the purple in the glaze. I never cared for beets as a kid - but now I love them. My favorite recipe is from the Moosewood Cookbook.

Sesame Beets

1 pound beets

2 T fresh lemon juice

1 to 2 teaspoons cider vinegar

1 T toasted sesame seeds

2 T minced onions or scallions

1 teaspoon sugar

salt and ground black pepper to taste

• trim and boil beets until tender.
• remove skins.
• toss with lemon juice, vinegar, sesame seeds, onions or scallions, and sugar
• add salt and pepper to taste.
• chill thoroughly for about 30 minutes and serve.

Yum!

Girl Scout Badges

I had a great time working with my daughter's Girl Scout Troop on their Ceramics Badge. They each got to try making a pot on the potter's wheel. We had a lot of fun and made a lot of mud. ;-)

Mother's Day is Coming

One of my mugs is featured in an Etsy Treasury called "Mother's Day is Coming" . I've been working on some "quotable" mugs for Mother's Day that are currently in the kiln. I'm hoping they turn out. It can be tricky to get text to show up under glaze. Hopefully I picked the right glaze and didn't apply it too thick.

Functional Ceramics

It's always fun to receive notes and/or photos from people who are enjoying their ceramic pieces. I enjoy seeing them in use and being reminded of creating them. Here's a soap/lotion dispenser that has relocated to Santa Rosa, CA. I imagine it's enjoying the warmer climate there and hopefully getting a lot of use. ;-)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Today I taught an after school art class at a local elementary school. We made caterpillars like the one from the Eric Carle book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We made them out of pinch pots that were nested together to form the segments of the caterpillar. It was a busy class full of kids from kindergarten to third grade. They made some very cute caterpillars. We humped up many of the caterpillars over some newsprint to make them look like they were crawling. My favorite is the one withe the eyelashes and strawberry on it's back. When I asked the little girl who made it about what was on her caterpillar's back she replied, "It's a strawberry for when the caterpillar isn't so full." Too cute.

I hope the caterpillars survive firing. They are mostly hollow as I had the kids put holes in the bottoms of their pinch pots - but they are still pretty solid. I also poked holes in the bottom of the caterpillars to help with drying and firing. I just hope they don't become "The Very Broken Caterpillars" during firing.

I Love Spring!

We've had a wonderfully warm winter here in the Pacific NW. Spring has sprung and the cherry blossom trees are just beautiful! My favorite is in our front yard. It reminds me of soft pink cotton. It's got me thinking of glazing in beautiful spring colors.

My kids love this tree too as it's great for climbing. When I went out to photograph it this morning, I found all three of my little monkeys in it with ropes - look closely and you'll see their legs in the middle of the tree. They love spring too!

I am included in an Etsy Treasury called "I Love Spring!" Indeed, I do!

Forever in Blue Jeans...and Rabbit Holes

I pretty much live in jeans these days, so it's appropriate that I found a glaze/clay combination that looks a lot like worn and faded denim. The brownish/gold edges remind me a bit of the gold thread used to make jeans. I like the thought - wearing demin while I drink coffee out of a denim colored mug.

This is a set of mugs that I think turned out well.

And just so I'm not misleading anyone that all pieces come out great, I'll share some of the bummers from this last load. The biggest bummer was that one of my tried and true glazes is running like crazy on the new clay body that I am using now. Even more of a bummer is that I glazed a mug I made specifically to fit in a car cup holder for a friend's birthday - and it got trashed in this run off mess. *grrr*

I'm going to have to wax up a bit higher next time - and do some serious scraping of one of my kiln shelves.

I have a permanent (*fingers crossed*) new piece of ceramic in my mouth. Yes, the dental drama of my tooth number 30 has come to an end. Today I had a new crown put on - not something I'd usually blog about but they used a really incredible machine to create it out of a piece of high fired porcelain - which, of course, I found fascinating. They took 3D digital images of my tooth and the post that they drilled it down to. Then they used a machine to cut the crown out of a block of high fired poreclain. I watched it work - and in 6 minutes I had a new tooth - that fit perfectly. No messy impressions, no temporary crown, and best of all - no return visit to put the final crown on. It really was very slick.

The Internet can be such a rabbit hole at times. You go looking for something and end up somewhere else. I was just looking at a tooth chart online so I could correctly identify dear old tooth number 30 (yes, you can can find most anything on the Internet) and I came across a website that charted teeth and the jaw in relation to parts of the body - like a reflexology chart does for feet (which by the way I'm sort of a believer in after a strange foot thing I had going on while pregnant with big baby twins - but that is yet another rabbit hole of a story for another day... or maybe not).

It said, "Basically, the reflexive relationship between tooth site and organ is an energetic one, created as a consequence of the tooth site and the organ sharing an energy channel or meridian, as it’s called in Traditional Chinese Medicine. A problem in your jaw can affect you just about anywhere in your body, for every tooth site crosses one or more of the 12 major meridians"

So is it a coincidence that my youngest who had problems with his front teeth as an infant and eventually had the both pulled at age 4 - had a bad kidney that he had removed? According to this the front teeth run through the kidney and bladder meridians.

And tooth number 30? I guess it could explain other ailments I've had related to the meridians that they say run through it.

What about the four teeth I had pulled in order to get braces?!? I hate think what ailments that might be causing me now. ;-) I can't even look.

Next time I get an backache, I might have to blame in on a root canal. hee hee.

If you read all of this, my apologies for making you follow me down this rabbit hole.

The Girl Scout Cookie Monster

I've been selling mugs as fast as I can make them it seems. I'm in the process of making another big batch.

I'm getting ready to glaze them all but my studio space has been invaded by the Girl Scout Cookie Monster and the fallout of the room "addition" that my husband did. A hundred boxes of cookies takes up more room that you might think.

It's interesting how my space becomes the default dumping ground in our household. Time to make some room and deliver some more cookies - and reclaim my space so I can glaze!

Juggling

I find myself feeling like a juggler lately. Juggling a number of different "jobs" - Mom, potter, volunteer, and nurse. We've had a rough couple of months with sickness in our house. The sun is finally out and I'm hoping that the last of the lingering colds, ear infection and sinus infection will be gone soon.

This past week was mid-winter break for my kids so we took a trip to Oregon to celebrate my Mom's 77th birthday. One of my sisters organized a great heritage tour where we visited a number of pioneer grave sites of grandparents and a family farm in Corvallis. The kids ran through the field surrounding the farm house - along with my Mom. I hope I have as much energy as she does when I'm her age. I learned how to juggle from her.

New Favorite Glaze Combination

I recently came across this glaze combination that I'm really liking. I love the way the green blends into the purple and makes blue where the two colors intersect. It's hit or miss with glaze combinations. You never really know what you are going to get with combining glazes - even when you think you will. I love opening up the kiln and unloading it - discovering what turned out well - and trying to forget about what didn't.

The clay body can have a big effect on the glazes as well. Here is the same glaze on a white clay body and on a red clay body. The results are strikingly different, aren't they!?

A Fresh Start for a New Year

Today I finished up a much needed and long overdue studio re-org. I've been thinking about new shelving for a long time now and finally bought some. I finished assembling it yesterday during a long power outage and today I put everything away. I seem to work better in a cleaned up space, so I'm looking forward to getting back to work. Although, it likely won't be "clean" for long. Clay is messy business.

LOVE! that Kitchen

One of my soap/lotion dispensers is currently featured in an Etsy Treasury. I love the color of this blue glaze.

Options

After a busy holiday season and some not so fun surgery on my mouth, I'm back at it. I just shipped off another Celebration Plate today and I'm catching up on some custom orders from December. I'm anxious to wrap up the paperwork and books from 2009 so I can move on creatively and get my hands back into clay.

I'm a big list maker and recently discovered that my youngest son, who is in 1st grade, seems to be as well. I found this list in his room recently.

The spelling is precious. My favorite part is at the bottom. Here's a translation:

Opshins (options - these must be the things he doesn't have to do daily)

Leos (LEGOS)

Pludate (playdate)

Gro (grow!)

I'm wondering if I should add "Shrink" to my to do list!?! ;-)

Ringing in the New Year - in '80's Style

For the second year in a row we've rung in the New Year with some of our good friends. This year we all met up in Olympia and had a great time. Last year we discoed until dawn (almost - we're getting old and still have little ones in our midst ;-)) and this year we relived our high school years by jamming to 80's tunes while dressing up like Madonna, Flashdancers, big haired rockers and prom queens. I'm not sure where we'll end up next year or what decade we'll relive - but I'm looking forward to what 2010 has to bring our way.

Pink and Purple

One of my soap dispensers is featured in a current Etsy Treasury called "Pink and Purple". http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=103648

I'm looking forward to being productive in the New Year! Juggling my varying jobs has always been my challenge. My goal for 2010 is to be more structured with my time so that I go into the studio like I'm going to work. I'm not meaning that it feel like "work", but rather that it be on my schedule to commit the time to potting. That's my challenge. I love to work with clay, it's just that there are so many things pulling me so many ways through out the day that I often put it off and then end up staying up into the wee hours of the night to get things completed. Sleep gets missed and then it's all downhill from there. Sleep. That's another thing on my list of priorities for this year. To get more of it. We'll see how that one goes. I've struggled with that forever.

Oriental Inspirations

The cadet blue Sake Set is making another round in an Etsy Treasury - this time called "Oriental Inspirations". I'm always flattered to appear in these. Maybe someday I'll put together a treasury. I just need to think of a theme. Any ideas?

Let it Snow!?

Last year we got blasted with over two weeks of snow. I was trapped at home for so many days that I felt like I was going a bit batty. UPS didn't deliver for at least two weeks - it was that bad. Christmas presents didn't arrive, feasts were altered and our plans were dependent on whether or not we could get out of our driveway.

This year feels so much better! I love the snow - but in moderation. We just aren't equipped in the Seattle area for it - although my sister did give us the snow plow attachment for our riding mower. I'm sure Bill and the kids will love to use it.

I ended up having to pack up my studio space in the garage to make room for my car last year. The doors kept freezing shut with all the layers of snow it was buried in. I'm grateful that it hasn't happened this year as I've been working like an elf out there. (Knock on wood - I really do that.)

My kids are at an age where they are really into testing the tooth fairy with obstacle courses, writing Santa notes and wanting to capture the magic on video. This year they're trying to figure out how to get Santa caught on tape. Here is a questionnaire from last year that one of my kids left for Santa. I love how she defines the "A" and the "Q". It's a keeper. This year, the same child has asked Santa to make it snow on Christmas. I wonder if he'll deliver!??

Etsy Treasuries

A few of my pots are currently featured in a couple of treasuries on Etsy (Sake Set and the Dark Blue Bowl).

It's always fun to see what kind of theme people put together. I recently saw that the latest top Treasury is called "All Male Artists Exposed!" With a name like that, I had to look. It had head shot pictures of a bunch of Male Etsy Artists with links to their websites. Apparently Etsy is full of women. I've discovered that's not completely true in the Etsy ceramic world.

I'm up too late again. I received a custom order for a celebration plate that I'm trying to finish before 12/28. I was in production mode all morning and late into the evening. I'm tired. Time to hit the pillow.

Hugs

I love these new hugging pots! It's been so crazy cold here that I think hugs are the way to go! I'm trying to figure out how to get bowls to hug. ;-)

Recovery

I think I've finally caught up on most of the lost sleep from last week during my big push to get ready for the craft shows. Both shows were great experiences and I enjoyed myself. I didn't expect to have so much fun getting to know the other vendors. I came home with some great new business ideas and some new friendships. I'm hoping to stay connected with a few of them as it was great to idea share and talk shop. These photos are from the two shows. My Mom provided me with some great old crates to use for my table top display. I need to work on a few things for future shows, but this was a great start for me. I'm busy now photographing pots to post in my Etsy shop.