As If It Was Christmas All Over Again

Opening a kiln after a firing is like opening Christmas gifts. Yesterday, Julie and I unloaded the kiln, full of many treasures. Above is what it looked like when it was opened.
Here's the back half of the kiln, after we unloaded the first two shelves.
These six (two on each shelf) are mine. :) Overall, I was so pleased with the colors...
Here are some of them, (many with gustin shino on the inside) from the top looking down. I put dots on the inside of some; overall, rich colors.
Above are four very different ones. I'm still trying to find my particular style and shape that I really like. Maybe I'll always make eclectic ones like these!
Eighteen cups came out in all for me. All had some shino glaze (spotted, gustin or rick's) somewhere on them... I really like the colors on these four. The one on the left had glaze only on the inside, with some design on the outside. Notice the finger marks on the one in the middle; (that was intentional).
This one shows some variation in the glazes; the ones in the back are dipped in spotted shino, and sprinkled with soda ash. The ones in the front only have glaze on the inside. The one on the left is the one on the top top shelf of the kiln in the first pic.

All of these were made with zella stone clay.

Many of these will soon be on etsy. :)

The evening was simply wonderful... to begin, Becky and I decided to have some wine...why? well, just because. Hers was in a tumbler she got from Greg and mine in a new wine cup, just fresh out of the kiln. (That was part of the reason why).
Becky showed me some of her cave art. A bit hard to see; turtle on left; rhino on right. Bad pic. Her birds and mug fared quite well in the kiln.
And then I spent the rest of the evening glazing 18 pots.... Yes 18. All are earthen red cone 5 clay and then dipped in creme glaze. For this slipware class, we're using mainly these three glazes below shown on the test tiles.

Slipware Cone 5 glazes: (L-R) Ron's creme; Ron's green, and Ron's amber.
The creme glaze was put on most; it is not easy to dip the pots into the glaze. This is the clear glaze; it has some iron in it, evidently. I almost dropped some pots into the glaze.It's harder than it looks...

By the night's end, I ended up glazing some with tahitian and adding Ron's green and tahitian as dots to the pots that were dipped into Ron's creme.

I also acquired this pot. Ron made it as a demo in our class. It's simply gorgeous.
As I drove north on the way home, it began to snow hard! The snowflakes were so big; these snowflakes fell quickly on my car when I arrived at home. How beautiful!
Will post some more pics later of closeups of the new pots. Yes, it was a Christmas-like kinda evening.

More Bowls and Davidson Basketball

Made two more bowls yesterday... it wasn't my most productive time at the studio ever, but I'm thankful that today is a new day!

One thing I haven't posted about at all is my love of sports. While in undergraduate school, I quickly became a Kentucky Wildcats basketball fan, back in the great days when Pitino was coach. In grad school at the University of Tennessee, I quickly began to follow the women's basketball game too- which is way different than the men's. I still believe that both Pat Summitt and Rick Pitino are some of, if not the best college coaches out there and are more fun to watch than the game at times. So, I go back and forth between wearing blue and orange these days, but usuallly not together as both schools are rivals. I'm the kind that will attend almost any collegiate Division I game.

All that to say that last night, I went to my first Davidson basketball game. Didn't take my camera, but the whole arena was so small, compared to the TN and KY ones. I did catch and win my first Davidson t-shirt, though. In all my years of watching basketball at my alma maters, I never did catch one of the t-shirts, and here at my first game at Davidson, I acquired this:

Stephen Curry was amazing to watch. Now, I have some Davidson red to wear to another game.. if only I can get tickets!

Learning

Well, I'm learning.

Today, when I tried to get the plate I made yesterday off of the bat, I quickly discovered that it needed to be thicker. Didn't end up saving it. Now I know. At least I know I can make a plate.

Did some slipwork today. Trying lots of different designs. Pressed my finger to make the imprint on the inside lip of both and the design on the one on the left; on the right, I used a metal ribbed tool. It is quite hard to pour the slip on the sides of pots like these. Almost dropped one of these into the bucket of slip.
Made a bigger bowl too; hopefully this will be the first of a set of cereal bowls.
Here are some symbols that I also practiced etching.

Meanwhile, there's always something going on at Clayworks. Today, the spontaneous entertainment at the studio was Ro and Kit doing the hula hoop thing... remember those days?

Kit (on the right) was teaching us all... So much to learn!

Back

I'm back home and it was good to be at the studio yesterday. It was one of those days where I thought I didn't get much done, but looking back, I really did.

Made my first big plate. :) Next, I'll make a set of these.... This earthen red clay seems to make everything easier. Then, made a second mug, almost identical to the first. It looks bigger; it really isn't so much.Meanwhile, Julie and Ro loaded the kiln. Here's the back part with some of their work, along with Becky's birds.
Becky and Elaine put a new kind of wax on barrel fired birds.

How beautiful!

Meanwhile, the kiln was still being loaded. Some of those cups (without handles) on the top shelf are mine! :) All in all, over 15 of my pieces made it in.
One piece didn't and will have to be patient till the next go-round.

Finally, it was full. Here it is!

Tuesday evening the firing will be finished and I'll take a shot when the door is opened to show the colors. I hope to sell some of the cups like the ones on the second and third shelf on the top left. All in all, a good day.
Off to run and then head into the studio!