New Shelf

New Shelf for the Clay Studio

I came home one day last week and my neighbor across the street had a pile of stuff with a sign that said “FREE” in big letters. The thing that caught my eye was this beautiful used white shelf. I went over and talked to him for a little while and then carried the shelf across the street and down to my lair before my wife got home. For some reason my wife gets really excited when she gets groceries for free or almost free with her stacks of coupons but then rolls her eyes when I find something for free…

Glaze Shelf

I wiped the shelf down with some water and a sponge and tucked it back by the sink. I loaded it up with a bunch of glazes and other supplies that I don’t use very often. It’s amazing how much room it freed up on my other shelves next to the glaze table. This extra space will be nice when I mix glazes and glaze pots.

New Stamps

New Clay Stamps

I also ordered some new stamps recently.  Actually one big 4×4″ stamp that I cut into smaller stamps after it arrived. One of the stamps is for a custom order and I got some other stamps that are just for fun or have potential for other projects. I’ve got a nice collection of company and school logos but most of these stamps aren’t limited to one specific project.

As I’m writing this, the kiln is bisque firing at almost 1500F. Soon there will be some glazing to do!

Pottery Trimming Shield

I bought a Giffin Grip a while ago and use it to trim a lot of pots. It has a lot of advantages but one of the (only?) problems I’ve found is that it adds about an inch and a half to the wheelhead. This is a problem because the surface is up higher than the splash pan for my wheel and some of the clay that I trim off ends up on the floor. Then I step on the clay and track it around my studio and before I know it everything is covered in dust. My splash pan also doesn’t fit very well around the Grip. I came up with a few possible solutions.

(1) I could just not use the Giffin Grip. (But it is quite useful for some things!) (2) I could just trim… very… slowly… so the trimmings don’t fly off the Giffin Grip. (But who has time for that?!) (3) I could just let the trimmings fall on the floor. (Okay, so that’s what I’ve done for a long time!)  (4) I could just give up working with clay and make things out of Play-Doh. (But that colorful stuff doesn’t hold up as well in the kiln!) I finally got around to a better option:

(Insert glorious trumpet sound here)

Trimming Shield on the Wheel

As you can see the shield is open at the top left where there is a modified plastic trash can. After I finish a trimming session I pick up the back shield and dump in the clay scraps. Then I slide the front shield (big part) off the wheel and dump in the scraps. And I’m cleaned up in less than 20 seconds!

Trimming Shield Back

I started by taking a lot of measurements around my wheel. After figuring out the dimensions I needed I found a suitable material. Mostly a double-thick piece of scrap cardboard and some extra matboard. (My wife always asks me why I keep every scrap of anything-that-I-can-get-my-hands-on. I tell her that December 2012 isn’t that far away(!) but it’s really for projects like this.)

Trimming Shield Front

After making the proper cuts I glued the folded cardboard in place with some Liquid Nails (maybe not the perfect choice but it’s what I had on hand). I traced the inside of my splash pan on the cardboard and removed the middle so it would slide under the wheelhead just like the splash pan. I had to make the cardboard thinner around the inside to fit so I peeled off one layer of the cardboard. Then I added some duct tape to prevent the ends from getting torn up.

Gluing the Back Shield

The matboard was folded and glued in the same manner and acts as the back shield which catches most of the clay. I found some old spray paint and added a couple thin coats to help prevent the cardboard from sucking up water from the clay trimmings.

I’ve tried this new trimming shield and it works quite well. Fantastic even, considering it was made completely of scraps and things I had lying around. Not pretty, but it gets the job done.

The Shelf with New Pots

Bad news: I haven’t made one single lump of clay into anything for about two weeks. Good news: I’ve done a lot of other stuff that goes along with making pottery. For example, I went over to the Stone Soup Emporium and picked up my check for the month of March. And for the first month ever, I’m in THE BLACK! I actually made enough money last month to cover the cost of the shelf plus 14 extra dollars. (I sold four items.) Hooray for capitalism!

New Pots and Pendants

I also took a bunch of new pots over and set them on the shelf. This included two handfuls of pendants. If I can sell a few of these per month it would be just as good as selling some bigger items right? (except it won’t free up as much shelf space).

We’ve put stickers on the bottom of the pots (which don’t always stick) but the back of the pendants have an unglazed canvas texture which would make stickers sticking somewhat sensational. (alliteration anyone?) So I whipped up some tags and found some gold clasps from another project.

Pendant with Tag

I don’t think I’ll win any awards but it got me thinking about presentation and how it relates to sales. Perhaps I can concentrate more on that at some point…

Donation Items

All of that red from renting shelf space the previous months hasn’t been all bad. I’m not exactly sure how far, but my name/work is getting “out there” at least a little bit. I received an email a few days ago from a nice lady that works at a small local school. She had been to the Stone Soup Emporium and emailed some of the artists asking for donations for an auction fundraiser. I’m always up for helping schools so today I dropped off, what I call, a utensil jar. It isn’t fancy but it can be useful for a variety of things. Hopefully it makes them some money.

New Pots for the Store

One last thing: I got myself a new camera! Not a nice new DSLR like I daydream about sometimes. Other direction. I wanted something small, cheap, but capable of shooting full HD videos. After a few nights of research I went with a Canon Elph 300 HS. Pretty nice little camera. All of these photos were taken with it. Maybe I’ll do more of a full review sometime… after I finish all the other posts I have planned. Check back soon!

Not pictured are some small pendants, test tiles/cups and about 3 other items that I re-fired to fix some glaze problems.

I hope to post some images of my glaze test results soon.

PBL Mugs

These are all larger mugs, more “stein like” really.  All had Saturated Iron poured inside and dipped at the top while the rest of the outside was dipped in Pam’s Blue (both Coyote glazes). I really like this combination and apparently other people do too.

I took the liberty of trying different options on the logos. I used brown and black washes on some, all brown on some, black wash on a pair and the Saturated Iron glaze on the rest. The washes came out a variety of ways. A few seemed more purple than brown, maybe too thick or too thin? But the logos with the washes seem more defined than the logos with the glaze.

Boberosa Mugs

Again, I tried a few different options. Some mugs have Orange glaze over black wash in the logo imprints. I also did some bare clay logos with black or brown washes.

 PBL Experiments

I didn’t have enough Sapphire Blue glaze so I tried some different glaze combinations with glazes such as Really Red, Pam’s Blue, Alabaster Satin, Peacock Green and the black and brown washes.

A Few Misc. Items

A few miscellaneous items to fill the rest of the kiln including a yarn bowl and some pendants. A local customer found my website and asked if I would make her some custom pendants for aroma therapy purposes. I’ve made ornaments that were very similar so I said I would give it a shot. They were pretty quick and easy to make. Except I ruined a few trying to get the hole at the top and glazing each one with a brush was a little tedious. Maybe next time I’ll wax the backs and put some fishing line through the holes so I can dip them. The lady really liked how they turned out and bought 12 of them. Hopefully they work well for the aroma therapy.

I’ve got about 6 more WN large mugs and 6 PBL short mugs to glaze with my new batch of Sapphire Blue. I’ve also been mixing some test glazes from the book Mastering Cone 6 Glazes. I’m hoping to get a glaze fire finished before I go back to school on Monday.

Mixing Glaze

I bought 10lbs. of Coyote’s Sapphire Blue in powder form and I just mixed that. I’ll let it sit until tomorrow and then glaze some mugs. The Sapphire Blue is pretty smooth. I used exactly 2 gallons of water with the 10lbs. of powder which put it at about 1360 on my homemade hydrometer which is where I like my two previous dipping glazes. I’ll probably add a little more water tomorrow because I don’t want it too thick. It went through an 80 mesh sieve with almost no pushing it through the screen. The particles must be nice and small. I’m glad I wrote that article about mixing glazes because it is not only a nice resource but I remember the process much better after doing it and writing about it.

I’ve got a post almost finished with some photos of recent logo mugs that will be up soon. Be on the lookout for that and remember I also post some shorter updates on my facebook page.

Bricks for the Bar

A quick update to show a recent project. My friend Jared is finishing half of his basement and wanted me to paint a small section of wall and make it look like old bricks. He’s putting an 8 ft. bar in front of the little cutout. He already has a little TV up in the corner and the mason jar lights are pretty cool. It should look pretty awesome when he gets it finished.

Bricks Closeup

The photos aren’t that great but I think it turned out pretty well. The wall was already stamped with a brick texture pattern which made it easy to paint the mortar dark gray and the bricks dark red. Then I went back and added a little texture and “age” and added a few shadows under the bricks to add some depth.

Not pictured: a small teardrop shaped vase, a Charger mug that turned out terribly, and a large mug with some stamped patterns.

I got a little tired of making mugs at one point so I wanted to try a different drinking vessel. I decided to make some tall handle-less forms. I’ll call them tumblers unless someone else has a better name for these tall cups. I feel like tumblers should have straighter sides.  I haven’t actually tried drinking out of them yet but I like how they turned out. My wife wasn’t as impressed and thinks they look like they should be used by kings and queens of the medieval times. Maybe if I dig a moat around the house?

I also wanted to make some yarn bowls to put on my shelf in the Stone Soup Emporium. I made three but I broke one before I could get it bisque fired and one has been donated to the Jefferson Elementary silent auction tomorrow. I’ll probably make a few more. I like how the glaze turned out on the inside of these two.

One of the best parts of the glaze fire was doing a little experimenting and enjoying the results. A while ago I wrote of mugs with poor attachments. A few were salvaged and survived the bisque fire so I decided to experiment with some glaze application. I dipped the two mugs in Saturated Iron to cover the outside. Then I brushed a patch of Eggshell on both sides of one and Alabaster Satin on both sides of the other. On top of these white squares I brushed a quick design with a black wash. The wash and glazes melted together a little bit and I think it adds some interest to each mug.

This weekend (hooray for presidents!) I hope to start cranking out another batch of logo mugs. I’ve been absent from the clay studio for the past week or so except to reclaim some clay and haul a couple boxes of new clay down to the bench. Here’s to getting dirty!

Little Chargers

A majority of the vessels were of the “Little Charger” variety. I had some orders from before Christmas and I made a few extra mugs and a couple handle-less cups/pencil holders.

(Big?) Chargers

A staff member or two suggested that I make some mugs with the charger-riding-a-horse logo that the middle and high schools use. I ordered a stamp and tried it on a few different forms with a couple different glaze combinations.

PBL and Boberosa Gun Dogs

This glaze firing was the beta test for a few new logos. Partners Bulk Logistics is a fantastic trucking company and the fine folks at Boberosa Gun Dogs train and board hunting dogs.

Notes

• The Coyote Glaze “Really Red” is appropriately named.
• I wish Coyote made a “Really Orange” which was just as bright.
• Brushing on glaze is STILL a pain compared to dipping and pouring.
• My favorite logos resulted from applying glaze to the impressed logo lines and then wiping off the excess glaze to reveal bare clay around the logo.
• Going from Red Gloss (more of a dull, cool red) to Really Red (brighter and warmer) was quite a jump. I love the Really Red but I think it overpowers the Sapphire Blue glaze which it is usually paired with. Maybe I’ll have to find a brighter blue glaze.

• Glazes used:
• Coyote – Really Red, Sapphire Blue, Eggshell, Alabaster Satin, Pam’s Blue, Saturated Iron, Orange, Red Gold
• Amaco – Red Gloss, Frosted Turquoise (not pictured)
• Mayco – Stoneware Copper Wash, Stoneware Iron Wash (referred to as “stains” in the descriptions)

There were a few non-logo items in the glaze fire. I’ll try to put up a short post with these items including mugs, tumblers and yarn bowls.