Mostly Mugs

It seems that mugs are what I like to make.

When I say I like to make, that means getting them to the decorated stage, not necessarily to the glazed and finished stage

I like to use underglaze, and I like to do slip trailing,

I like to work in small groups, and use one color one day and use another color on another day

Although mostly the mugs I make  are about 4 inches tall, the other day I tried some taller ones, the ones decorated in pink, above.  The walls are quite thin and seem like they might be a bit fragile.  But I like the way they feel.

Slowpoke

I have been so slow in making new work, 

These are some small slab plates that I started in September and glazed in December.  

I left spaces to put flower decals, so I hope to do that in the next few weeks,

These are some mugs I made at the same time.  The front one is handbuilt, the others are thrown.

These lovely dishes were made by my son and his girlfriend in September when Lisa ( at the Clay Spot in Savannah) gave them an introduction to throwing!  She is such a good teacher!  

The colors all coordinate so well!  And the gorgeous textile was a Christmas gift from Dierdre.  It is an Indian cloth covered in rows of stitching! 

Some finished pots,

I do have a few photos of some finished pots-- yay,
The pots in this post were ones that I fired last week at home, before I came to spend a few weeks in Savannah,

spread out on the table,

a little morning espresso mug

 another little espresso mug,  - they have to be short enough to fit under the nozzle, and also not too large to hold only 3 or 4 ounces of coffee,

 the pink inside the mug is an underglaze, and I used the nice clear glaze I tried from the Digital Fire web-site,

 I've branched out into hand-building lidded containers. I might be applying the glaze to thickly, although again, this is only to cone 5, as the kiln didn't make it to cone 6.  Just the day before I left, they came into the pottery supply store, so they'll be waiting to install when I return home!

 I like making this style of bowl, and they seem to vary a bit in wonkiness,

 I really enjoy doing screen printing on the pots, and slip trailing too.  I love dots. 

I am linking up to the Mud colony site today,  here, you can check out what other potters are doing, and it is fun to follow along from week to week.

Mug Shapes

I like to do mugs these days, I suppose because you can always give them away to people, or use them.  They do seem to get used enough that eventually they break or you get tired of them and you need another one. 
The mug shapes above are ones that I've made in the last week or two, in my little backyard shed here in Asquith. 
The ones below were made in Savannah in May or June,
I am currently leaning toward the more open top, and squaring it off, but retaining the same type of  handles, and the little foot ring that flares out too.
I've returned to using Plainsman clay,-- some M370 that is about 12 years aged, and some P300, which is what I think I'll stick with.  

Mishima in Progress

The inlaid "slip" that I used is really a mix of black and white underglaze, thinned down a bit.  I like the charcoal color better than a jet black.

The leaf-like patterned one in the center has the pattern from top to bottom, whereas the one to its left has a bit of empty space above and below the pattern.  I might put something in that area. 
i'm thinking that the inside of the mugs could have a green glaze, It would be fun to have a bright turquoise, but the studio doesn't have one that color, I don't think,
The flowery ones sort of remind me of molly Hatch ones,
On a couple of the mugs, I tried a technique that I saw on a video demonstration by Erin Furminsky, on Ceramicartsdaily
It has some slip trailed decoration that is quite raised.  Then there are layers of underglaze painted over it all.  Finally you scrape off the layers so that the slip trailing is exposed, and some of the layers of underglaze.  The underglaze had really gotten dry by the time I got back to do the scraping, so I ended up exposing some of the clay body as well, but we'll see how it all turns out.

 Finally for today, this is the butter dish that is hand-built that I made a few weeks ago.  As you can see, we have been using it, and it works pretty well!

 I like the base with it's slip wash, although the texture on the right side wasn't deep enough to hold on to it when I washed it away.  For one of my first hand built pieces, I'm quite happy with how it turned out!

Moon White clay, cone 6, clear satin glaze with glaze stain decoration.

Mug Shapes

 On Wednesday, I threw some mugs to explore some shapes, - I liked the posts on the Fine Mess blog about sketching in 3D, rather than on paper.  Although, I did make some sketches on paper first, but none of my mugs turned out to look much like the pencil sketches. 
I used a bit more clay than usual, it seems, because they all turned out a bit larger than I usually make.  I put the handles on yesterday.
I brought them home to work on a bit further because I wanted to do some mishima and needed to catch them at leather hard stage, and i won't be able to get to the studio for a few days by which time they would prob be too hard.  

1. Similar to what I've been making, but narrower at the top.  Also I think the handle is a bit too big

2.   again, big handle, ???

3. similar to #2,

4. shorter and wider , sort of like an old white glass mug

5. More rounded, with low handle, quite big!

6. much like #5, (they all seemed different when I was throwing them!)

7.  this one just looks upside down to me

8. the smallest of the lot, I added a couple of coils around the base.  very adventurous

9.  I sort of like this one, altho again, the hangle seems sort of large. 

 Why didn't I notice how big the handle wer while I was attaching them?

 Last night I did the "carving" for the mishima, and there were a lot of burrs, so I let them out overnight so that I could brush them off this morning and fill them in

which is what I'm going to do right now!

"Mug Analysis"

-- being quite a blow by blow description of what went down on this first batch of mugs...

1.  my favorite at the moment, as you can tell from the coffee drip.  I like the color off this green, but there was some crawling.  I think because I used the black wash under the glaze, which could have acted like dust, and Lisa said that this is sort of a finicky glaze.

2.  Least favorite.  I don't like the great big leaf being so dark against the lightness of the flower.  Also, the flower could be outlined a bit more.  Also, the mugs look a lot better with a more pronounced foot "bump"

3. again, the carved drawing lines didn't pick up the black wash very well. 

4.  this looks a lot like a Mel Bolen mug to me.  On the positive side, the incised lines did pick up the black quite well, and there is also a nice halo of grey around the slip trailed dots!

same mug, shot of handle

5.  I like this mug, but the transparent glaze looks quite milky.  These were all on the bottom shelf of the kiln, so maybe it was cooler down there.  I wonder if I should re-fire them and see what happens

here you can see that the glaze is pretty stony down on the bottom edge.  Do you think that re-firing makes a piece warp more?

6.  The background of the main section on this one was rose underglaze.  Now it appears sort of grey,

7.  the turquoise blue seems pretty reliable.  Haven't got a clue what the color was on the top edge.

8.  light blue and grey , the decorative lines are pretty faint.

9.  This one is supposed to be orange.  again, the glaze is pretty milky,

where it was thinner on the top edge, you can see the color a bit better.  Re-fire? I sort of like this shape, and the bottom edge,

10.  Another one with this green glaze,  lots of crawling. These ones I brushed wax on the circles, and along the straight vertical edge, wiped away the dry clay to get the relief.  I really like this effect. 

11. Again, I really like the glaze trailed stuff.

12

and just for something different, a tile.  it had mishima where the black is.  I like the tree on the bottom right edge.  I think I might try it in slip trailing with charcoal grey slip.  

That's the initial round-up.  Feedback is welcomed.