Crabapple in Full Bloom

 The crabapple is in full bloom a full week earlier than last year.

Yesterday I worked at the gallery, Art Works. I sold another couple of pieces but I also noticed one of my pieces of work was broken.

We had a video production company in the gallery yesterday. I'll talk more about that next time. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Heavy Reading

Tomorrow is supposed to have a high of 30 so it's lucky the other day I picked up some books at the library since we'll probably be house bound for a number of days. The heavy reading is this first book, The History of Modern Art, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture by H H Arnason as it is quite heavy but laden with lots good reading and many photographs of art in both color and black and white. Notice that pottery isn't mentioned.

Of course I never lack for something to do with pottery as my life's work now but I guess I'll never stop learning. What can I say I like learning new things and am endlessly curious. Today I work at ArtWorks and this coming weekend is the Mistletoe Market so I'll be really busy anyway. Thankfully it's an indoor show.

I also picked up this book Caning and Rushwork by Yvonne Rees to get some background information because in January I've signed up for a class locally to learn the art of caning. I'll start out working on a small footstool. I've also signed up for an acrylic painting class. The classes are given at a local church. The classes are taught by volunteers in the community as part of the church's outreach program, OASIS, for adults over 50. For 25 dollars a person can take as many classes as they want each quarter. What a bargain.

Lastly I found a book on The Art of Woodburning by Betty Auth. Woodburning and woodwork has always intrigued me. I never did paint on the slabs of wood, walnut, cedar, oak, etc, I got some time ago. The wood was so beautifully grained I didn't have the heart to cover it up with paint. I have another project set aside for that wood and it doesn't involve woodburning either. Sorry about the quality of the photos of these books but I'm in a rush this morning. If you click on the links you'll be taken to more details about each book.

Coming up I have a few recipes to post and I've opened up a bag of speckled stoneware clay and starting making more work with that clay. I also have one bag of red clay to use. So stay tuned while many of us will be keeping warm with indoor projects. Meanwhile I redid Barney's bed but I may have to make a few more additions to it with this next onslaught of cold coming along. Thanks for reading and for all  your comments.

Mid-Range Glazes by John Britt

On my bedside table is John Britt's new book Mid-Range Glazes. One of the reasons I like working with clay is there's always more to learn. That is particularly true with glazes; there's so much chemistry to learn. John Britt, the glaze guru, explains all the glazing nuances so well with color photos, charts, and detailed descriptions. This is definitely the reference book to have in any potter's library.

Meanwhile Gary finished the patio yesterday, on his birthday no less, while I was working at ArtWorks. Of course Gary forgot I wanted to add some pottery shards to the mortar. So now I'm thinking I'll make a totem to sit outside the entry. I will post photos of the patio coming up next. It was too dark to take photos by the time I got home last night. So stay tuned.

This past week I sold another piece of pottery at ArtWorks and a several pieces at the antique store, so I've replenished those supplies. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Glazing

Sometimes I wish the pots were finished when they were freshly glazed because they look so good to me. That's what I was thinking after I glazed this large flower pot yesterday. The surface looks like a smooth soft velvet.

This bowl made me feel the same way. As I'm typing right now I notice my hands are really dry; they get that way while I'm glazing but I don't dare put on any hand lotion till after I'm finished. Hand lotion makes the pots resist glaze.

Right now I'm firing another bisque load because it's taking much longer to glaze than I expected. One of the reasons it's taking so long is because I made a silly mistake. Many times when I glaze ornaments I use colored slip on the edges so I don't have to glaze the edges. I had forgotten to do that before I bisqued these. I started putting slip on the edges yesterday. After I had a whole bunch of them done the slip started drying and flaking off. The slip dried and shrank but the greenware didn't shrink. Ugh  It took me forever to scrape and clean up all the edges especially on those xmas trees.

 Some of these have oxides underneath or two different glazes.

I hand brush all of my glazes and I have to be especially careful if I use two glaze colors like the basket above. You wouldn't believe how long it's taking me to glaze the rooster bank, the two animal jars, and the cat sculpture. I'm working at ArtWorks again tomorrow so I won't be able to glaze fire till Tuesday or Wednesday depending on if I get all the work glazed. At least I'll have another load to glaze while the other is glaze firing. Well back to glazing. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Drape Mold Bowls, India Ink, Water Color

The other day I made a couple of drape mold bowls. (I put the wood spoon to show the size). For these bowls I take a slab of clay and drape it over the back of a bowl form. For this one I let it dangle freely and cut off the bottom edges randomly. I took it off the mold when it was still flexible and it splayed out a bit which I wanted. The discoloration on the edges of the clay is the vegetable spray I use to release the clay from a stainless steel form I'm using. It won't be visible after firing.

For this smaller bowl I paddled it close to the form and pressed the seams together. I kept it on the mold till it was more dry and it stayed in an upright shape.

Green ware is piled up every where in the studio, time to get some firing done. Worked at ArtWorks yesterday, maybe today I'll start firing. I need to bring something to ArtWorks to keep me busy when there aren't any customers. I have that crochet doily on the back of the chair because at my last home my cat Betty scratched a lot of holes in the top. The chair is still usable so I make do with the well worn chair. Ha.

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I may have to take up India ink drawing again. Something I can do without having to take too many supplies with me to ArtWorks. Maybe I'll put water color or colored pencil on afterwards. Will have to research more about the process. The thing with India ink is once you draw a line, if it's a mistake you can't change it. Maybe I should use pencil to start with. Ha.

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The last time I did an India ink drawing was junior high days in summer school. I did mostly architectural drawings. Wish I had some of them now. I might have had a steadier hand back then. We shall see. Yesterday it was 76 F and later this week we're supposed to get below freezing. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Another Armadillo, Sgraffito or not

Nor long ago my armadillo sgraffito plate sold at ArtWorks. Earlier someone else saw my plate and came back to purchase it and it was already sold. Who knew armadillos were so popular. These are nine banded armadillos. Armadillo is a Spanish word meaning 'little armored one'.

Yesterday I decided to make another armadillo in a platter size. I intended to make this one sgraffito but after hand brushing the stains and underglazes, I thought it would be better without the sgraffito. What do you think? There is a lot of variation in color which isn't readily noticeable unless you enlarge the photo. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.