New Glaze Tests

I did a cone 6 firing last week and experimented with some new glazes. I've always just fired to cone 4 because I found a couple great base glazes over a decade ago and just configured my own colorant and oxide amounts to add to them. But, over time I am discovering that cone 4 is very limiting. There are hundreds of cone 6 glazes out there that I've been itching to try. It takes hours to do though, something I don't have a lot of. I bought "Mastering Cone 6 Glazes" by John Hesselberth and Ron Roy, glazing gurus. A very good read with loads of great info. I realized that I've been loading my kiln so that it's not firing evenly. With just a little more work and watching the kiln more closely, my firings are coming out better.

Down below are the three test tiles that I'm most pumped about. Raspberry, Bone and Spearmint. The Bone looks more whiteish in the book, but I like the warm variation I got here. I can always experiment with the amount of rutile in that one. I'm sooooo excited about the Raspberry and cannot believe I actually weighed out the components correctly on my tiny little kitchen scale that I've owned forever. One measurement called for .2 grams of green chrome oxide! If you put even .1 gram more, you can get a disgusting green color instead of red. And the Spearmint just looks so yummy.

Happy Easter!

This is my daughter showing off her ceramic pattern egg that she made in her Kindergarten class with me. I took a couple afternoons off from teaching my Kindergarten classes......to teaching her K class. Not a big switch for me, but I never get a chance to volunteer, so this was fun for me. I feel weird teaching holiday projects, but I introduced it as a "pattern egg". The kids didn't care and had so much fun anyways. Even if some of them don't celebrate Easter (which I know a few don't), they experienced a making a sculpture rich in art elements: pattern, line, shape. Below are all the eggs from the class. I love how they are all different in pattern and color, just the all kids are!

New Pendants

I've made some new multi-colored pendants measuring approx. 7/8"width by 1 and 1/8"tall, with just over 1/8"thickness. I've already sold 3! This week has been really good to me with local and word of mouth sales. I've sold 5 pendants just this week alone.

Broken Dryer and Making Square Plates

Our dryer broke this weekend. The heat just stopped working. We've tried fixing it and have had zero luck. It's old, so time to replace! But, until Uncle Sam sends us some $, this is what you'll see around my house.

This is what I'm working on right now in the studio: square plates. I'm having so much fun making them. So different for me to handbuild functional ware. My sculptures almost always have slab work, but never have I tried this. I love rolling slab and throwing them. I don't have a slab roller, but I think I do pretty well at getting even thickness. I'm trying 12" squares. With the 11% shrinkage, I'm looking at approx 11" width. I'm also working on smaller 9"plates that will shrink to about 8" in the end. The little plate pictured is a test. I want to make sushi pottery too!

New Pendants and Etsy Maine Team meeting!

These are two of my newest pendants. I have been experimenting with different textures and combinations of glazes. I love the way they are coming out. I just need to make more at this point.

I love this plate. Right now I'm experimenting with square shaped plates that can be interchanged with my thrown pieces.

Tomorrow is our first Etsy Maine Team meeting! http://www.etsy.com/profile.php?user_id=5647553 I hope the weather holds out for us. We were supposed to have our first meeting last weekend, but I had to cancel it because of the horrible weather. I was so bummed. I'm really looking forward to making some new artistic and crafty friends and of course to network. I've made some great trades too, although some of my key trading buddies can't make it tomorrow.

Now I just hope my kids will feel better soon! My son has an ear infection and my daughter is fighting something nasty. Spring can't come soon enough.

My New Prints!

These are my latest finds on Etsy: awesome prints by artist John Golden, http://johnwgolden.etsy.com/ I bought the space ship for Rob for his birthday a few weeks ago, and it's hanging in our office so I get to see it everyday. I intended to give the Stan Jr. robot to Henry for his birthday today, but have decided to hang it in the living room instead for the whole family to enjoy. Definately check out his shop. He also does fun animal prints as well and other great stuff.

Happy Birthday Rob!

Today is my husband Rob's birthday, which also happens to fall on Groundhog's Day! I found this magnet by Etsy artists pearsonmason (www.pearsonmaron.etsy.com). I think this is just so funny! They also make Bigfoot and Abominable Snowman magnets which is probably one of my next purchases, maybe Father's Day, or earlier if I can't help myself. I showed Rob this site a couple of days ago and the Bigfoot magnet: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9165981 and he loved it.