Bowl Full'a Crazy

This week has been crazy!  Actually, the past few months have been crazy...but this one has been a bit a little crazier.  So, I've been working hard today to find a little bit of normal...uh...or less crazy!  One of the things I did was to stop at the ceramics studio to see if any of my bowls were out of the kiln.  I found three and a saucer.  Yay!

I like this little bowl.  It's so cute!  The small size and the frilly edge make me smile.

I've got to try some other way to glaze my pieces though.  I've been using some special tongs to hold them and dip into the glaze.  But, they leave little spots where they grab onto the bowl that I have to touch up with little finger dabs of glaze.  Sometimes it doesn't show.  But, other times...like on this bowl...it does.  See those dots on the inside bottom of the picture...

I know, it's not horrible.  But, it would look a lot better without those spots.

I made a little saucer too.  I glazed it in Winnokur Yellow to match so many of the things I've made and use in my kitchen.  I think it was a failed bowl that I tried to save and turned into a saucer.  Yay...it worked!  It even looks cute with this little bowl.

This bowl was an attempt to make a wide, shallow bowl.  It's 7 1/2" wide x 2 1/4" tall.

I had a wider, bigger one in mind but didn't use a big enough ball of clay.  I like it though.

I used Tea Dust glaze on this one.  I like how the green dots look like lichen.

It's a pretty reliable glaze.  I like that too.

Woo hoo!  Another success at a larger bowl.  It seems like if you can throw a small bowl,
a bigger bowl would be no big deal.  That's so not true.  They're very challenging.

This one is just over 8" wide and 3 1/2" tall.  I'm still aiming for bigger.

I have some more bowls waiting to go into the kiln that are deeper.

This one is glazed with Stoneware Blue.  It's one of my favorites.  Although, it's a bit unreliable
in that  I usually get a fairly solid blue but this one came out with lots of brown spots.
I think that means the clay has more iron in it...I think.  It's pretty though.

The semester has gone by fast and I only have one more week to make things.  Then, we only have time to glaze and fire.  I've missed some days due to all the things that have come up the past few months.  And, the stress has been a bit tough on my creativity and ability.  It feels good though to see these few successes.

I struggle with whether or not to mention any of what's been going on.  It might be pretty boring.  But, I realize that I may be  leaving readers wondering.  So, if you're interested... my daughter's first year away at college has been intense. The school part of it would have been ok.  But, the living situation turned out to be horrible.  I knew that roommate situations aren't always fabulous.  But, now, I know they can be awful.  And, now, I know this, sadly, is very common as I've been hearing soooo many similar stories.  I hate that my daughter was on the hurtful end of it.  But, I'm so proud that she's not a bully and mean like the other girls she lived with.  She called me on Wednesday morning and things had gotten so bad that we quickly had to make arrangements to move her out that day.  We did it!  Whew!  She has a couple of months to try to find a much better place to live before the new semester starts at the end of January.   Luckily, she has a wonderful friend that offered to let her stay at her place for the last couple weeks of this semester.  That's so sweet and we are so grateful!

The other stuff?  My dad has been going through some health stuff and I had to take him to emergency a few weeks ago.  It turned out to be a reaction to his flu shot but he has a bad heart so they wanted to check him out to be sure he was ok.  It was a long night and I didn't get home until 3:30 in the morning...25 minutes drive to their house, an hour drive to the hospital, hours at the hospital and the long drives back.  So glad it was nothing serious.  But, he had surgery last week for something else.  So, it was another day spent at the hospital and taking him to the doctor a few days later.  He's at home and doing very well.  I talked with him today and he shared with me his worry and need of support with my mom as she is having memory problems and has started to break down and cry over her frustration.  I'm hoping to talk with my brother about it later and try to figure out how to handle it.  It's a delicate situation to figure out how to approach someone about seeing a doctor for such a thing.  I can only begin to imagine how scary and frustrating it would be to be told that others are noticing you're having problems like that.

And, last but not least, I finally got around to going to a dermatologist to have a spot checked out on my cheek.  The good news is that it's not cancer but it's pre-cancer and had to be treated.  So, the teenie, tiny spot that I went in with became a big spot I walked out with.  I try to not think about it when I talk with people and imagine that they don't see it.  Ugh!  It's supposed to clear up in a couple of weeks.  Oh...and two more months of hormones and I'll be done with that treatment.  Then, it'll be time for another uterine biopsy.  Fun!  NOT!

Now, back to some of the "normal" not so fun stuff...house cleaning, laundry, cooking.  But, I'll be happy to take that over crazy, any day!  I guess a little crazy once in a while just helps us appreciate the "normal" that much more.

Have a wonderful...non crazy...weekend!  :-)

Fresh Out of the Kiln

I popped over to the college this afternoon to see if the latest kiln firing was done, cooled and unloaded.  It was!  Yay!  I was able to pick up the last of my projects.  I'm really excited about some of them and can't wait to share...

One of my goals for the semester was to make a large bowl.  I definitely made progress toward that.  This is the biggest bowl I've made so far and it's quite an accomplishment.  The larger a piece is, the harder it is to throw on the wheel...and to get it to be round and not lop-sided.   It shrunk a bit in the kiln (which always happens) but it's still pretty big. If I take ceramics again, my goal will be to make one even bigger! 

This clay must have had a lot of iron it because the bowl developed lots of freckles when it was fired.

I love the yellow and rust color in Winokur Yellow glaze.

It's not as big as I'd wanted but will be plenty big enough to make something in it to serve my family.

It's 8" tall and 4" wide.  I placed a regular sized garlic head next to it to give an idea of it's size and scale.

Before the semester was over, I had to try throwing on a kick wheel.  It's powered by my foot only.  No electricity.  It worked better than I'd expected.  To get better at it I'll have to remember to let go of my clay whenever I kick to get the speed back up.  I learned that the hard way.  If I kick while my hands are working with the clay, it immediately sends it off center and I end up with wonkey, lop sided pots.  They're also a bit thick on the bottoms because I wasn't able to lift them up much more after they lost center.  But, I'm pretty proud of them for my first try.  And, what fun!  I love that I made them with human power.  It was a quiet and peaceful, creative experience. 

This one resembles my honey pot vases.  It looks great with the other two and gives me a perfect set of three in various sizes.  I plan to put some flowers in them very soon and try it out as a little grouping.

I took a picture holding it to give an idea of the size these two kick wheel pots are. 

My third attempt at a goblet went much better than the first two.  But, it still wasn't all that great...until I picked it up today.  The glazes I used transformed it into something pretty cool!

I used Teadust glaze on the outside. It's usually black in color with green speckles. Turns out it also red in it.  There are even some tiny blue flecks.  It's interesting and lovely.  I really like it.  The tiny greenish/yellow flecks remind me of lichen we see on rocks when we hike. 

I used a green glaze on the inside that I thought would tie in with the specks on the outside.  Turns out it would have been pretty light.  Luckily, I was inspired by another student and how she had experimented with mixing different glazes.  She had some fantastic results.  So, I grabbed my goblet and headed back to the glaze room and put a little splattering action into the project.  It turned out to be just what it needed to tie the outside and inside together.  I love it!

The stem fits and feels very nice in my hand.  It's very comfortable.  The goblet is almost 8" tall and holds exactly eight ounces of liquid.  I think that will make for nice sized serving of wine...to start with.  I plan on trying it out tonight.  Cheers!

Lovely Lizards and a Bevy of Bowls

I've just finished 18 weeks that I will cherish for the rest of my life!  My daughter and I took another ceramics class together and had a blast!   This is the second semester we've done this.  I feel so lucky to have a daughter that loves to hang out with her mom.  I treasure every moment of it!  She'll be transferring to a university in a few months.  So, this will be the last time we'll get to do this for a while.  That chokes me up a bit but I know we have lots of new adventures ahead of us.

If you're a regular visitor to my blog, you may recall a blog post I did a few months ago about a lizard I had sculpted in class.  I had a lot of fun making it and was pretty pleased with the results.  Since then, he's undergone a bit of a change...glazing.  It didn't turn out quite like I'd planned.  He was supposed to be sort of a greenish color and the cup was supposed to be a deep chocolate brown.  Being the beginner that I am and that the glazes aren't always reliable, I ended up with this...

It's not what I had envisioned but it's kinda cool.  I made it for hubby and he really likes it.  So, that means it's a success.

That lizard inspired others in my class and other classes that saw it.  Someone even called me the "lizard master" one evening during class.  That was fun!   

I enjoyed sculpting the first one so much that I was anxious to make another one and I did.  This time it adorned my very first teapot.  The spout was challenging but I did it.  The lid was challenging too and it came out a bit large.  That made it the perfect place for a lizard to sit!

I chose the same glaze, Winokur Yellow, that I used on my Acorn Mugs last semester.  I usually like the yellow color with bits of rusty orange.  And, it's usually a reliable glaze.  However, it seems that the bag of clay I used on this and a few other projects had a lot of iron in it.  So, they came out of the kiln with lots of freckles!

I'm really happy with the shape of the teapot, the lizard, and the yellow and orange colors. 

But, I'm still trying to fall in love with all those freckles.

The yellow parts are satiny smooth and make the lizard fun to pet!

I'm planning to make a pot of tea tonight.  I can't wait to try out my new teapot!

I love his shape.  So cute!

One of the freckles could be an eye!

I practiced a LOT on the wheel to learn and improve my skills.  The teacher was very encouraging about not worrying about assignments but to just keep working because it's the best way to improve.  I appreciated that.  It made the semester very productive.  I made close to 40 projects!

One of my goals for the semester was to make a large bowl that was big enough to make a salad for the family.  That's not as easy as it sounds.  The bigger the project, the harder it is to make on the wheel.  So, I practiced a lot and made a lot of bowls!

I tried to make a set to go with my Acorn Mugs and Lizard Teapot.  I ended up with three that are almost exactly the same size. I made them with the same bag of clay I used on the teapot and they ended up with a lot of spots.

I named the set, "Funny Freckles".

These bowls were made with a different bag of clay and the color turned out great...more like what I'd hoped for the above projects.  I like it when I can get a perfect little spiral in the bottom and get it to show up. 

 

I had a lot of fun making these.  I call them, "Honey Pot Vases". 

As you can see, these were made with clay from two different bags!

I think they'll look really cute with flowers in them.

Here's another "Honey Pot Vase" glazed in "Woo blue".  I love the blue/green drips.  So pretty!

Woo Blue glaze seems to be a bit unpredictable.  It turned out mostly brown in the vase above.  But, in this bowl, it turned out more blue.  I love that color!  The toasty brown edge is a nice touch.  The inside is solid white.

I named this one, "Zen".

This bowl turned out pretty big.  It'll work for a nice personal salad.  I can't wait to try it!  The glaze I used was supposed to be green but I think i got it a little too thin.  I love the tan color and the simple, natural look of it though.

I have LOTS more projects but I figured this was enough for now.

It seems to have been a very productive semester for a lot of students and the kilns are so backed up that they're still working on firing everything.  So, I don't have my biggest bowl and some other projects back yet. 

I can't wait to see how they turn out!  It still amazes me what can be made with mud and heat!  And, how great it feels to use a ceramic piece that I made with my own two hands.