glaze results coming up later this week

been alot going on here but nothing exciting as far as clay goes. i've been working on mixing up many new glazes and getting the test tiles done. hopefully i can get them fired later today. if all goes well i'll actually have some completed pieces to show you later this week. i won't be getting the exact results i want until i get my kiln controller, but i'm going to try to catch the kiln when it shuts off and give it a good soak so i can get closer to what i'm looking for.

i've been doing some thinkign about blogs lately. my favorites are ones that mostly stick to pottery. some personal stuff here and there is great, i enjoy getting to know the writer as a person, but too much is just too much. so i'm probably not going to post as often here, maybe weekly, depends on what's going on here. i want to have something to say about clay and w/ my work schedule lately i'm afraid there's not a whole lot going on here on a daily basis.

so stay tuned, i likely won't post anything more till i can get my glaze fire unloaded, so yall take care! (that's my texas coming out lol)

Jackie if your reading this here's your bowls drying slowly, they'll be in the next kiln load. :)

Well i just threw 4 ginormous (for me) bowls! Wasnt meaning to get them quite this big but oh well. the biggest one in the middle on the bottom shelf got a little floppy so when it firms up a bit ill put it back on the wheel and get that flared rim straightened up a bit. but now i probably wont be able to fit all the green stuff in one kiln load...

1st Etsy sale YEAH!

just made my 1st etsy sale and i'm thrilled! :)

got a big day planned tomorrow... got an order for a bowl so will throw that and probably a couple more things or maybe some slab pieces. i only have so much wet clay to work w/ which is i guess is a good thing. i just want to make more stuff but i need to get going on my glazing. so also mixing up lots of glazes to test out. more tomorrow...

My new design, with a little help

i'm just so excited about this. i took some of Gracie's artwork (my 6yo daughter) and put them on some plates. i have 4 in all, but couldn't get the 4th to show up in the picture. the 3 are hard enough to see, but i was so excited about it i had to hear what others think. you'll probably have to enlarge the image to see anything.
If they turn out how i see them in my head i think they'll look great, but we'll see. i'm hoping for a white background w/ various colors to fill in the figures, i'd like to have black in the grooves but not sure how that'll happen. maybe a few splashes of color here and there too, not sure. am i nuts?? am i just a proud mom who thinks her daughters artwork is fantastic??

Got lots more stuff photographed today. Of course kylie insists on helping me do everything which i told her is grestly appreciated. Heres a snap of my set up including the box of girl scout cookies i was using to prop up my camera lol. i'd already removed the background but you get the idea. Very low tech but it works. The hardest part is collapsing the darn light tent! Also got my plates and soup bowls trimmed up while the munchkin was napping. :)

Etsy

I finaly got around to posting a few things in my etsy shop. i went through a few boxes of my work being very critical of any flaws. i have several things to use as target practice, a lot of stuff to use myself or give away, and some things to list. i still have several things to type up, and more boxes to go through. i just haven't had a chance to get it all done.

there's way too much stuff on my to-do list. i've got just enough clay left to fill up another bisque load. hopefully by the end of the week i'll be done w/ the wet-work. then i really need to start glazing my last bisque load. not my favorite part i must say, but once i get started it always ends up being not quite as bad as i was expecting it to be. i'll probably end up w/ about 3 glaze loads in all, maybe more. the first load will be mostly orders that i need to fill. at least it's warming up a little and i'll be able to get out there and work a little w/o hauling everything back and forth up the stairs in and out of the house.

my husband said he'll start working on my studio again next weekend. not to much more to do till it's workable, but a long way to go till it's how i want it. we got a little distracted w/ a swingset we bought the kids. whoever came up w/ the plans for that thing has to be a twisted individual. but the kids are happy at least and it'll help get them out of the house and keep them out of my hair lol.

meanwhile the septic tank is backed up again. we're going to have to call somebody in to fix it which will probably entail digging up our yard and replacing the drainage field. lots of $$ and lots of mess. fun-fun. oh well, i'm just wasting time now so so now off to work while the kids are still sleeping.

Well, part of the post went through so thats good. This method of posting could be pretty handy... Here's another pic of some tea bowls i made and also an order of soup bowls. Also got some tidying up done in my workspace and soon-to-be studio space so in all a productive day.

Testing on my cell, can you see this?? I made some plates yesterday. I finally got the hang of throwing them thank goodness.

this is what i came home to today. a european mount elk head hanging in our stairwell. (please ignore the worlds ugliest wall paper) this thing is big, the skull is almost 18" long. my husband shot this thing last season. now i get to look at it every time i walk in the door. oh yeah.

my new fish platter

i made a few hump molds a week or so ago and tried them out yesterday. here are most of the the molds.
mostly just small ones except for the monster fish platter you see there. i've had a cheap-o plastic fish platter for several years and never got around to making the mold i wanted to w/ it but finally got around to doing it.  it worked great as you can see below, but the edges of the mold are pretty thin so i think i'll build up a (coddle?) around the edges of the platter and make a thicker mold eventually. probably be another several years till i get around to it lol.  the platter turned out well though. i left the edges as they came off the mold, just smoothed them a little w/ a sponge. then added some feet w/ openings that you can tie a string between to hang the platter on the wall.  very simple but i really like it alot.
i also made a set of 8 of the little dishes here.
i'll probably use the for testing glazes and they'll probably end up in my cubboard, but i've got a few ideas about how i want to glaze a set of dishes and these will come in handy to test out my ideas. i just took a tupperware container that had a shape i liked and used it like a cookie cutter to cut out the shape from a slab. then draped it over one of the molds till it firmed up a bit. the simple design was from a tripple toothed comb that i can't stand to use on hair. but the baby likes to play w/ it alot and she was sitting there w/me chewing on it while i was working so i borrowed it (to much screaming) and used it like a stamp. ;)

solved my glazemaster problem... turns out i was using a downloaded verson, one i'd never really gotten to work properly. i figured i just needed the directions, but i guess it didn't download properly because i could never get the materials to pop up like the directions said they should. i ended up deleting it out of my files and installing it from the cd, worked on the first try- yeah! i'd heard how easy this program was to use, i seriously thought i was just a moron and missing something obvious to everybody else. glad i finally figured it out...

things went well at the various doc appts and evals today. no genetic or metabolic workup for kylie, they're sending her to an endocrinologist, thinking it's something w/ her adrienal gland (sp?). as for the OT, she'll be going every other week to work on a little fine motor problems, but nothing serious. there's likely some sensory problems too but i don't think they're as bad as my son's has been so good news there. not sure i can handle another wild child like the boy.

so hopefully tomorrow i can get some glazes mixed up. i'm wanting to get on my wheel again. i'm itching to get my hands dirty but probably won't happen till next week. we'll see how it goes... the to do list is HUGE!!!

my brain is melting

i must be an idiot. for the life of me i can't figure out that darn glazemaster program. i'll get it eventually but i want it to work NOW and have all my recipes in it NOW and what the heck, i want it to tell me what's a good glaze and what isn't and why not throw some pictures in there too (NOW)?? (and i don't want to do any of the work lol) huhhhhhhhhh... guess i have to keep reading the directions...

i did manage to get some of my chemicals organized and in tidy little containers stacked neatly on the shelves today. looks rather odd when i still have walk-through walls in my studio and tools and building materials everywhere. but my 2 youngest are sick so didn't get much time to myself. it's funny how i'm learning to instantly switch from potter to mom mode. i was in my studio today, just starting to measure out a glaze recipe when kylie woke up. so i jotted down a couple notes and up the stairs i went. she was just coming into the kitchen, i gave her some juice and i went right into loading the dishwasher. now i just have to learn to flip the switch the other way. when i get her asleep i walk into my workspace and stare around like a zombie for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do. it's hard when you never know how long you'll have to work. hopefully when my studio's done and all my stuff is in one place it'll be a little smoother.

so off to bed now, long day of dr appts tomorrow. can you say take-out for dinner?