At the Art Institute

This is a pot I saw at the Art Institute in Chicago, 

It is quite large, about 20 inches high, by a contemporary Korean potter, I think.  Sorry I didn't take a photo of the information card.

Also, this is an an American Indian pot with a woven pattern decoration, 

It too was quite large.  

Both pots are very graceful, and have nice "lift" from their bases, 

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! 

Getting Ready for a bisque fire,

Every now and then I want to try using some commercial decals on some pots.
A while back, I made a squared slab bowl, but it cracked, and so I tried it again recently.   I added a bit of texture, which I highlighted with underglazes. I also left some wide-open areas planning to put the decals on this pot.

I went online to find these decals, and they mailed them to me. Onmost of them the scale is larger than I thought it was,  Which is a typical thing to happen when you order online, But I'm sure they'll do just fine.  

So these are a few other things that I've accumulated to put in the bisque fire.

I haven't been very active at all lately with clay, what with doing all this sewing for and rediscovering Crosstitch and gardening and other yard work...

So as a result I'm really scrounging around to fill the bisque kiln so that I can try these decals. I did make six little saucer plates with that in mind and they don't have that much underglaze decoration on so I think the decals will work well.

A shape that I've been playing with lately is a little covered jar, and some of them seem to be developing a crack in the same place. I'm not sure why,

Of course this blue one won't be getting any decals, it's pretty done already.

The blackboard style

These letters are all in the style of a blackboard with chalk writing on them.

Mostly I used a charcoal colored slip underglaze and trailing white slip for the decoration.

This text is the exception. For it, i just scgraffitoed  through the slip.  It resulted in a sharper, more defined line .  To do it this way you need to catch the clay before it gets too dry to carve the line cleanly.

The circular disks are a bit smaller about 3 inches in diameter.

And these ones are even smaller about 2 inches across the widest part.

These last two are just reversed color placement.

Maybe I should make some of these even smaller and thinner out of porcelain that would be appropriate to use as pendants. I could see them layered with various other types of pendants.

Last year I made quite a handful of tiny little disks like this and just stamped numbers on. Haven't really done anything with them. But they were fun to make.

Shaped tiles

Continuing my documentation of alphabet letter tiles...

Most of these are about six and seven inches tall

Tried a green glaze over the d, but not too successful, 

The b is Mishima,

The a is one of the few that has no silk screening , instead it is carved and a green glaze applied thickly and allowed to pool, 

I continue to like the dark grey wash to emphasize the scratches and the slip trailing, and to dirty up the color a bit,

The reason they have holes is so that they can be hung on the wall,

The t and the s might be a bit too busy, 

Misc square tiles

Only one cracked, 

More tiles

These tiles all have some green on them. I like the chartreuse underglaze, and I have been trying to develop another darker green glaze that won't go all of or brown at cone six

This is closest I've come to a medium green, and I wish I could remember what I did to get it. I think I must have combined chartreuse with another color.

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