Soupy Sales

I am thrilled to report that I sold the set of Spring Viola mugs that I blogged about here. Of all the mugs out there, someone chose mine! The same customer also bought a set of slate trivets with copper leaf leaves painted on them. Of course this person must have extraordinary taste.

Although the jewelry portion of my shop has been successful, I am slowly letting those items fall off of my shop without relisting them. I want to see how things go if I focus more on the housewares, which I love more. Jewelry is fun and easy, but I've never been one to wear a lot of it. I may change my mind and relist it at some point, or if I ever wind up going to craft fairs as a vendor I would have a lot of very portable inventory (somehow stone and pottery seems like a lot to haul around).

Crusty Pots

I wanted to share the glazing results on two of the pots I posted recently. I threw two cylanders, painted each with a liquid silicate (dyed with iron oxide for a red color), let the silicate dry, and then bellied out each of the cylanders to reveal craggy crackles. The next week I trimmed a foot on each pot. After they were bisque fired, I dipped each in soda ash. This first pot was also given a black lapis rim, slightly uneven, just for kicks. I threw the first pot with a speckled clay, and the second was thrown with a smooth, white clay.

You can see the specks in the clay on the inside of the pot.

I expected to like the first pot a lot better, but I have to admit that the red looks really vibrant on the white clay, and I enjoy how it becomes orange near the rim.

I flattened this pot a bit after I threw it, giving it a somewhat oval shape.

You may also recall that I did a tile workshop in May. One of the things we did was paint on some blank tiles with glaze. This is one of the tiles I painted - we used a number of glazes and wax resist. I'm not sure if I like the result, but it's growing on me. I especially like the glaze in the hill behind the tree. It was called Sherwood Forest.

Plumeria Postmortem

My faithful readers (hi mom!) are surely waiting to see pictures of the plumeria tiles now that they have been glazed and fired. If you want to catch up on how I made them, check this post and this post. Overall, I am fairly pleased with them. For someone 9 months into clay, and for first tiles made from a first mold, they're pretty good. I used the same underglazes and clear glaze on top of these tiles so that I could compare the two different clays I used. I believe the Shenandoah and Dogwood clays proved to be about the same.

The green underglaze that I used for the background doesn't like the clear glaze over it, which resulted in a brown or washed out effect in areas. The darker green on the leaves came out much better, and I will probably use it again, but with a different green in the background. I was pleased with the white and yellow parts of the flowers, but next time I make tiles from this mold I will probably spend some more time perfecting each individual tile. At the workshop I was just trying to get several made in a short timeframe. The back of each tile could use some work as well, but since I don't have an air compressor, I'll have to carefully extract them and go back and smooth the surface.

I don't plan to list these prototypes in my Etsy shop, but I have learned a great deal from them and I think the next round will be even better.

Plumeria Progress

I finally painted two of the tiles I made at Joan Gardiner's workshop. I used Amaco underglaze in white, yellow, and several greens. As a reminder, here is how they looked prior to painting.

Here is how they looked after I painted them with the underglazes.

Once they had a chance to dry all the way, I waxed the backs and sides with wax resist. Then, with the help of a friend, I poured clear glaze over the top of each tile. They're now sitting on a shelf, waiting to be fired. Cross your fingers for me!

Deep Relief Tile Workshop

This weekend I was lucky enough to participate in a tile workshop instructed by Joan Gardiner, hosted by Manassas Clay. Joan was a great instructor, and her cheery instruction was only surpassed by the incredible pieces she brought to show/inspire us.

Rabbits stewing the hunters:

We were asked to bring an image that we could try to replicate in a tile. I brought two pictures that I took while on my honeymoon in Hawaii (both are available in my Etsy shop):

Joan encouraged me to pick the plumeria photograph because the blooms were particularly interesting with one behind the other, and the petals bending back on one and coming forward on the other. And, in her words, sometimes flowers on a stem can look like a "meatball on a stick." First we had to sketch the image onto paper.

We then traced the image through the paper and onto a 6 inch square of clay. I was too engrossed to take pictures while my prototype was in progress, but this is what it turned into.

Once the tiles were done, we put a wooden "box" around them to contain the plaster, and sealed it with clay. Pouring in the plaster mix.

We left the molds overnight, letting the magic happen.

(Gary Heller's "And no one was there," available through his shop on Etsy.)

This is how I found my mold this morning:

We pulled apart the boxes and extracted the clay, exposing the plaster mold.

And we began making tiles...

We also got to play with some blank tiles Joan had already bisque fired, using her glazes and some wax resist. I may do another post on those tiles, if they become anything to write home about.

In other news, I brought home some finished pieces this weekend. Here is a sampling:

This piece was interesting. I used the smokey brown glaze with white glaze, the way I have been lately. Applying the glaze was a comedy of errors - the bucket of glaze blurped up when I dipped it, which I tried to fix, and then I accidentally touched it while it was still wet, which I tried to fix, resulting in even more problems with the glaze. I finally quit, figuring I had ruined the piece. But somehow the kiln gods smiled, and the glaze ran in rainbow-y pools down the sides.

In other other news, before/while and after I was in Paris, some major progress was made on my studio. The flooring is finally finished, a utility sink was installed, and my husband surprised me by having a flat screen tv installed on the wall, and connected it to FiOS.