Perhaps yesterday was not the best day to run the kiln; luckily, it’s located in the garage which is about 250 ft from the house, and it’s a little kiln, so it doesn’t throw off heat like Big Momma does. I had to do this firing, as I have orders that have to get filled. The bowl towards the front shows the results of my resist experiment.  I’ll get better pictures once they’ve been glazed; it’s very hard to get contrast between white and white

My hands have been sore the past few days, so I’ve tried to take it easy on the craft front. They’re a little better today, so I’m hoping to do some glazing once the Boy goes to bed.

These pieces went up in the shop today:

This has nothing to do with ceramics. He’s just cute.

A while back I posted some pictures of a new technique I was experimenting with using acrylic medium.  I loved how the piece came out (I thought I had a picture of it on my memory disk, but apparently I was mistaken), but unfortunately it was slightly warped. Well, not so unfortunate for me, since I’ll keep it and wear it!   Anyway, I had about 10 minutes to spare yesterday afternoon, so I pulled out a few pendants that I cut out the other day. 

My goal is to create painterly designs on my pendants that are also textured, so that the glaze will pool in the recesses and “break” over the raised areas. 

For the piece on the left, I began by painting the entire piece with a very pale pink underglaze. I then used a darker pink and created a rough gradation of color on the pendant.  Then, for both pieces, I painted my design freehand with the acrylic gel medium and a liner brush. I set them aside and let them dry.

The next step is to gently wipe the piece with a damp sponge. The goal is to remove the areas of clay that are not protected by the medium. This will give me a raised effect. You need to proceed carefully; if you are too ambitious, you can wipe the resist right off the clay and end up with some broken lines.

This clay is a white earthenware, so the areas that are gray now will be white. This piece will have a clear glaze coat.

I’m very excited about how this piece will turn out. I’ve been wanting to emulate cherry blossoms for awhile, and I believe this just might be the technique.

The pieces will first go through a bisque firing (where the gel medium will get burned off), then they’ll get glazed. You can use a similar technique on bisqued pieces if you are using underglazes. You won’t get the raised effect, but you can get distinct lines of colors using this method.

If you check out the July/August 2010 issue of Pottery Making Illustrated, they demonstrate this technique using shellac. Acrylic medium isn’t nearly as toxic, plus the brushes clean easily with soap and water (thanks again to Kristen Kieffer for sharing this technique on her DVD).

I was getting ready to order some victorian ceiling tiles to use for texture sheets and had an epiphany: I can get similar textures by using this technique on a slab of clay.  Did I mention that I love my slab roller???

Stay cool, if you can. I’m thinking that I could put my greenware out on the deck today and have bisque pieces tonight, just laying them in the sun.

These are the results of 20 minutes of work, including the time it took to loop and cut the little wires in the pendants (seems like everyone is ordering wire instead of holes).  Go Slab Roller!  I was having a problem with the rollers, took the thing apart twice, then finally discovered that the little screws that are supposed to hold the gears in place were loose (not sure if that was done during assembly or shipping).

I’m cutting out a number of plain pendants this time around. I was happy with how my acrylic resist experiment came out, so I’d like to explore that method some more. In my artistic life, BC (Before Ceramics), I was a decorative painter, so I’d like to incorporate some brushstroke techniques into my work.

The orders are starting to come in from my “Nature Walk” necklace that is in Stringing, Summer 2010.  I had a glitch in my shopping cart that I caught after a couple of orders (and corrected, fun fun afternoon THAT was), but if you’re DM or SM and you placed an order with me, your glaze choices did NOT come through. I’ve been trying to email you but haven’t received a response back yet, so I’m wondering if my emails are ending up in your spam folder. Please get back to me with your choices!

I’m loving the little ring dishes. These will be making an appearance in my shop as soon as they’re glazed. Tonight I’m breaking out the stoneware and I’ll be making some of those plant spikes for sale as well. 

Off to battle a formidable toddler.  Serenity NOW!!!

The boy is almost as happy about my new slab roller as I am!

Check out this bead giveaway over at Denise Yezbak Moore’s blog:  7 1/2 pounds of beads! And it’s not just a big box of plastic pony beads, either. Look at this (but first, back away from your computer so you don’t drool on it and ruin it).   Hey, I warned you:

Oh man….am I the only one getting palpitations???

I did a bisque firing yesterday, as I have some orders to fill.  I have some stoneware pendants and beads, earthenware pendants, spacers, and beads, a stoneware texture sheet covered with oak leaves, and all those plant stakes. Those stakes are for hubby for father’s day, but I suppose they are just as much for me since I’m not sure what is planted where. They only went through a cone 06 firing, but I’m planning on glazing some of my midfire stuff shortly so they’ll go through the kiln again to strengthen them up.  I rolled some texture into the clay then rolled over it again to make it more subtle. I then stamped the veggie names onto the stakes (forgot carrots–whoops! At least I know what those look like). I used mason stain to accentuate the letters, then fired them. I won’t be glazing these pieces. I figure if moisture gets into them then the glaze will flake off.

I’m going to make some to take to the flower shop, I think. I used a pizza cutter to cut these out, but I think I’ll use a length of tin sheet next time.

And check out what finally bloomed, 4 years after I planted it (and 2 years after I gave up looking for flowers on it):

Luckily it’s been out of reach of the weed-whacker. I finally ended up putting some stones around the garden so Pete won’t take anything out anymore. He’s dangerous that way….

As I was wandering around the yard a couple of days ago I looked down and saw the cutest, tiniest acorn. Luckily I had just received a package of Mega Mold from Cool Tools, so I was able to create a two-part mold and recreate this little cutie. I can either make half the acorn (for earrings and such) or the entire thing.

(See how my hand is blue? That’s from the shirt I was wearing…eg wear white when you’re photographing your products!)

As I was gabbing on the phone with my mother this afternoon, the dog started going mental. I didn’t think anyone was here, but lo and behold, FedEx was sitting in the yard. What the heck???  I have a pretty good handle on what I’ve ordered, and I know I hadn’t ordered anything that would be coming FedEx in awhile.  YAY!!! The summer issue of Stringing was here, along with my necklace and earrings that were published. I’ve already added the bead set for the necklace to my Designs page, but I don’t have any pictures yet of the pieces for the earrings. Whoops! I sent this stuff in back in January, so I barely remembered what the earrings looked like. They’ll be added to the site in another day.

Today’s bonus: As I was driving down our road a Scarlet Tanager flew in front of me. I’m guessing it was the male since it was NEON RED.  So gorgeous….

I’m finally adding a newsletter to my t0-do list.  This won’t be a hard-sell newsletter; rather, I’ll be including such things as tutorials, book reviews, and special subscriber-only discounts, and maybe some random drawings!  I’ll also give subscribers advance notice of new items that will be available (I’ll show them in the newsletter BEFORE they even hit the blog!). You can sign up here, on my home page, or the link will be posted permanently in the sidebar of my blog.  Look for the first one around the beginning of July. Hope to talk to you soon!

My sister approached me last weekend and asked me to make a necklace for a friend of hers. The only requirement was that it had to have some of my ceramic beads. Other than that I had total freedom. Here’s what I made:

When I was waking up Monday morning and was in that place between sleep and awake, I suddenly knew what I was going to make. I was chomping at the bit to get to the office and get working on it. This piece came together fairly quickly.

Have you ever had a flash of inspiration like that?