I dropped off the earth for a couple of days at the beginning of the week. I added a few listings to my Etsy site, then I had a meeting early Monday afternoon. About 20 minutes after Becky left, I began to feel funny. I thought it was just hunger, so I grabbed some lunch. It didn’t help. Finally I realized that I had a migraine coming on. I dumped my purse upside down looking for my meds, but apparently I used my last “travel pill” already. By the time I got home I was driving with one eye open. My husband met me at the car and took Isaac, while I stumbled in the house and down the hall to try to sleep it off. Apparently once the headache takes hold, my meds won’t work. To top it off my cold was breaking up and I was having coughing fits which felt just peachy. I fell into a fitful sleep around 11, woke up at 7 the next morning, sat up–still there. Not as bad as the night before, but I still felt awful. I still have a residual headache from it, but nothing like the first night. I haven’t had one that bad in years. Soooo….I haven’t been very productive this week.

It’s terrible. You start to feel better, but you don’t trust yourself. Any false move can get it going again. I’ve been riding this roller coaster for 20 years, and although I’ve accepted it as a fact of life, it still sucks the life out of you. I know many of you can identify with this. It’s sort of sad that a three year old knows to go grab the ice pack, you know?

Well, I’m off to do some glazing. The pieces in this post have been listed in my etsy shop. If I find a quick remedy to the shopping cart issue, I’ll be adding more pieces to Etsy tomorrow.  

Thanks for listening.

I needed to fill a couple of orders and get some samples glazed up and fired, so  that’s what I did. Apparently the trick is to fire on a really hot day so the stuff can get a head start, because this is what came out of the kiln:

The wire to the far right, along with the pieces to the right of that, are for orders. Most of the pendants to the left are samples and are unglazed on the back. The exceptions are the square beads up top and that wavy oval piece that is glazed with a beautiful copper glaze.  You can’t tell from the picture, but when that glaze is fired it’s sort of glittery.  I LOVE the green beads that are heading to their new home. I had my doubts when I saw the customer’s color choices, but the combination of sage and bells of Ireland is fantastic.  I’ll be repeating that combination soon.

There was also a handful of stoneware pony pendants in this load that I have to glaze and fire tonight for samples.  I’ll be glazing Pete’s mug with a light blue shino (I think, 98% sure) and firing that as well, so at least I don’t have to spend the day glazing a zillion little pendants. 

Here’s an example of the unpredicability of glazes:

This is the same glaze, fired in the same kiln.  The square pieces are white earthenware, and the other piece is terracotta.  The only other difference is that the sample was fired flat (unglazed on back) and the squares were hanging from the wire.  This variety is great if you’re firing for “fun” (i.e. not firing for custom orders), but it’s hard to offer glaze samples when they do stuff  like this.

I only had two rejects in this load, which is fantastic!  I’ve lost whole loads before (the decal load of 09),  and I think that they might have been too close to the kiln posts, so they got fried.  They were kiln fillers anyway, so I’m ok with that. Lesson learned.

If it brightens up a little today, I’ll get pictures taken of the other pieces and get them in my shop. If you’re interested in any of them, drop me a line and I’ll set them aside for you

Right now I’m working on samples for a gift catalog that recently contacted me. I’m excited about this and hope it works out well for both of us.  I also managed to get some pieces glazed and fired this past week, with more to come (lots more….hoping to fire on Monday).

I don’t think I mentioned it yet, but I was one of the lucky winners of Denise Yezbak Moore’s big bead giveaway. I ended up with a delicious new green bead stash–thanks again, Denise!

And here are a few things that came out of the last glaze firing:

Yeah, I know, the green bead stash and the bisque beads are showing up in  the gallery, but I don’t feel like fooling around with it.

Next time I drop off the face of the earth, toss me a rope, will you?

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.

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!!!