Clay Roulettes Redux
Clay Roulettes
Several weeks ago, I participated in a stamp exchange with other members of the Etsy Mud Team. Swaps are fun – you just never know what you’re going to get in return. I was pretty happy with the ones I received, but didn’t know how the recipients of my stamps/roulettes had used the ones I sent. Yesterday, the recipient of one of my roulettes, shared some photos of work she has made using a roulette (left one in photo above) I posted last month. Lisa has really integrated the roulette into her work nicely – take a look at the photos below:
Platter using roulette for the rim – Photo courtesy of Lapella Pottery
Pen pillow – my personal favorite! Photo courtesy of Lapella Pottery
In my opinion, Lisa and her hubby, Alex, are Etsy success stories – they’re really selling a lot of pottery online. So go on, check out their awesome hand built and wheel thrown work in their Etsy Shop.
But, let’s not stop here…what happens when a clay roulette is “super sized”?
Tire roulette
This site was brought to my attention by another fellow Etsy Mud Team Member – pretty dang cool, huh?
Meanwhile, I had hoped to do a ^04 decal firing this afternoon, but it just didn’t happen. I’ll start the kiln early tomorrow morning – I’m going to bed as soon as the bread is done baking, hence the late (for me) night post.
~Cynthia
Adding details to ceramic boxes
Butterfly Box
My in-laws have been in town since last weekend and despite the distraction, I’ve managed to make and finish work for the Colorado Potters Guild Show opening at the end of the month. These boxes are still green – or unfired – and will be bisque fired some time early next week. I don’t have as much work as I would have liked, but I am happy with what I have made. The sides of these boxes have intentionally been left with no decoration because I’ll be adding laser toner decals after I have glazed the boxes. BTW, the butterfly sprig and knob (above) and the heart knob (below) were made using a chocolate mold.
Heart Box
I have a few larger boxes, this one included. “Large” is a fairly subjective statement, however, since this only measures 4″ across and tall. I think this one could go many different directions in regards to decal motifs – from the sanguine to more contemporary (I immediately saw tattoo images with the hearts).
Lavender Butterfly Box
For this box, I used underglaze for color and will add decals over the butterflies [one on each side] as an experiment. You may remember my failed attempt several weeks ago when I over fired a bisque load.
Tall Flower Box
Finally, this tall box isn’t terribly practical, but it would be sweet to store wedding rings next to a night stand or sink or as a gift box to present someone with a special gift. The flowers were made from lino-cuts – which I desperately need to expand for more variety! I still have other boxes in varying degrees of being finished, but haven’t photographed them yet. My hand building phase is coming to an end right now, which means it’s time to throw a few things in preparation for the show. I’ve learned that throwing is a much faster process than hand building – but enjoy doing both.
Meanwhile, I reverted to my old Word Press theme while I figure out how to use The Gimp instead of Photoshop to manipulate the images in my file folders. While it’s fairly similar to Photoshop and many of the tools are recognizable, it hasn’t been an intuitive switch for me so I picked up a book called Beginning Gimp by Akkanna Peck yesterday. I was getting frustrating trying to use my old way of working and am determined to make Ubuntu and free open source software work for me. In fact, yesterday I was in Best Buy and I took another look at new cell phones, lap tops – including the MacBook Pro, and really restrained myself from making any hasty buying decisions.
That’s it for today,
~Cynthia
From slab to lidded box
Stoneware lidded boxes
Better late than never, I have begun production mode (well for me at least) in an effort to have a decent amount of work at the Colorado Potters Guild show opening April 30th here in Denver. I keep forgetting to ask whether or not we are allowed to bring ceramic jewelry for sale, because then I would have no trouble producing 105 pieces in time for the show. Some members do bring buttons and in my mind the leap from buttons to jewelry isn’t a big one, though as a newer member I don’t want to raise the ire of any of the long time members. While I haven’t made any buttons in awhile, I might bring some to this show because they aren’t terribly hard to make and I could crank some out pretty fast.
Meanwhile, my covered boxes are my best sellers – though this time around, I’m breaking the mold a bit. Instead of hand painting the designs in under-glaze like this one that I made last year:
Hand painted lizard box before glazing
I will be adding laser toner decals for the graphic decorations like I did for this one recently:
Seashore themed porcelain box with decals
On the one hand, it loses part of the hand made touch by not painting the boxes, but it does speed up production significantly. Speaking of speeding things up, I was perusing the Essential Guide to Mold Making & Slip Casting Ceramics by Andrew Martin again yesterday while I had some time to kill and think the boxes are the perfect candidates for slip casting! No time to make any right now with a deadline looming. I’ll wait until after the show is over. Until then, I make these boxes 3 – 5 at a time small batch style like artisanal wine or cheese depending on how large of a slab I roll the night before and the size of the boxes I decide to make from each slab. 
I roll a slab from about 4-5 pounds of clay (not sure because I don’t weigh it) and then after smoothing each side with a Sherrill rib, I place the slab between 2 pieces of dry wall to allow it to become leather hard overnight. I suppose these fall into the category of “stiff slab construction” as opposed to soft – which I also dabble in occasionally.
I’m getting better at prying myself away from the computer in the morning – so with no further adieu…
Signing off for the day,
~Cynthia
P.S. I know my theme looks rather boring right now, but several people using IE were having difficulties with my site. I need to personalize this one, but in the meantime, I’m pretending to be a minimalist [as if such a thing were possible].
Making connections
Handbuilt Bowl with text stamped glazed
Is it really Friday already? Time seems to be set on fast forward right now, ‘cuz it’s really flying! This bowl is from the archives [well sort of] - late January, I made some slab built projects inspired by a Bill Van Gilder video I watched. Simple projects that aren’t too difficult to reproduce.
Hand built bowl with text stamp
This bowl was basically constructed using a slab of clay which I draped over a wood block and allowed to set up before removing the block. Any type or shape of support could be used for different types of plates, bowls or platters – more infinite possibilities.
Side view of bowl
I was a little worried about the very wide rim slumping in the glaze fire, but was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t. I did use a ^6 white stoneware that I purchased from Mile Hi Ceramics called “Ash” that I like a lot. I use it for almost all my hand built work now a days. I don’t like to throw with Ash, however because of the extra grog. I suppose I’m spoiled by silky smooth porcelain clays I’ve been using.
Me on left and Deb Babcock in her studio/gallery
While I was in Steamboat Springs, CO last week, I arranged to catch up with Deb Babcock – fellow Etsy Mud Team Member and potter. Last Thursday, after skiing in the am and needing to rest my burning thighs thanks to 17″ of new powder, I took the afternoon off and went into town to meet Deb. She has a great studio space that also serves as gallery/shop space in a strip mall enroute to the ski hill. I was impressed with how bright and spacious her studio is compared to my dingy garagio. She works right in the middle of her shop, but keeps it very tidy due to the retail aspect of her studio. Very cool and creative use of space. It was interesting to learn that 33% of her income comes from Etsy sales and the rest from her shop and local shows. Her busy time is surprisingly Summer/Fall thanks to the enormous snow drifts piled high in front of the shop – but not so surprising since my favorite time to visit the mountains is in the summer!
I really enjoyed meeting a fellow potter and learning how Deb makes it work. And, I am enjoying my new hand built Blue Sky Pottery mug that I purchased from her shop – the photographs in her Etsy shop don’t do her work justice.
Have a great weekend,
~Cynthia
P.S. I’m not sure I like the new WordPress Theme or not – but I was getting bored of the old one. I’m still adding stuff to my side bars, including some music that I’m really groovin’ on right now (that’s coming, I have to reduce the file sizes – so nothing yet). It looks pretty good in Firefox (my browser of choice), but like crap in Internet Explorer. So, if you’re reading this in IE, my apologies – I need to get under the hood and mess with the coding a bit to clean it up. What the hell – why can’t code look the same accross all browsers? That’s hooey.
