Been Working

Between projects, planting, cooking, unpacking, sorting and the like I've made a few pieces in clay. I'm revisiting my stacked towers. The upper one is made with speckled brownstone clay, has sprigged flowers, and is about fourteen inches tall.

This one is made with little loafers clay, has twisted circles, and is about twelve inches tall. It's a real balancing feat for the twists on top.

And there's a few fern plates drying in the cabinet.

I must remember to comb my hair and spruce up before Gary takes my photo next time. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Experimenting

This was an experimental form which I thought would be good for a covered cheese dish. Unfortunately it developed two cracks at the bottom underneath during the drying. I decided to fire it anyway just to see how it would do. The cracks didn't get any larger; this would hold a good sized piece of cheese underneath. I'll try making this one again. It's really difficult to get the glaze in all the nooks and crannies of the curled parts but would be worth it if I can succeed next time. I might round the edges of the handle portion more. I never did make a plate for it to sit on since it had the cracks. The plate would change the look somewhat but still it would work. I may make a few plates to see what it would look like.

I tried a copper wash over a fern and the fern outline isn't defined enough. So I'll use ferns for other treatments but not this one. I don't like the round depression in the bottom of this plate either.

This is another fern plate but I dusted the surface with some sprinkled slip. Once again the fern isn't working and neither are the sprinkles. But I do like the organic shape of this plate and I'm going to make a template from it to use for more plates. I think a more organic shape will work better with the leaf plates I'm making.

Here's the sunflower platter I made a while ago. The rim is just too rough and wavy for my liking. This comes about when I try to form the rim before it's firm enough. There's a fine line between not firm enough and too firm. It's times like these when I think I need to make a slump mold. I've been putting that off but I may just have to venture into that realm.

I think I should have put the black stain on the rim too. Look at the little bit of cobalt showing up in the black, I like the sheen and variation it gives to the color. This also happened in the owl platter. I might have to experiment with thinning the black stain down a little more to see what color variations I can get with it. I'm envisioning a black and slightly blue plate surface.

All is not lost with experimenting. With each firing I learn a little more and in turn there are more paths to venture down. Thanks for reading and for all your comments.

Fern Inspiration, Golden Polypody

The spores are seeds of new life ready to be dispersed. This is a Florida native golden polypody fern.

 I only harvest a couple of leaves from our jelly palm tree, leaving the others to reproduce.

I made a two fern plates. Thanks for reading and for all your encouragement and comments.