Posts Tagged “green ware”

Found Greenware
Nothing much new in the studio this past week. My in-laws left on Thursday, and I spent Friday just doing nothing - and it felt good too - I even took a nap, which is something I rarely do anymore. I’m not quite sure how it happened, but the hands in the photo above survived our cross country move from Maine to Colorado a few years ago. I’m amazed partly because they’re fragile and still green, meaning that they haven’t yet been bisque fired. I’ve moved them to my studio where I’ll bisque fire them in the next go round which will hopefully happen next week sometime. I just checked on my effigy doll head and it’s drying nicely. It had developed some cracks in the base while I was making it, which won’t affect the outcome at all, but by drying it slowly, I should minimize additional cracking.

Salvaged brick outside back door
It’s been so darn hot here in Colorado the past few weeks that I’ve decided to sleep in the basement a few nights. It’s actually cool down there as compared to our bedrooms on the 2nd floor. We don’t have AC, and never really need it, save 30 days or so out of the year. The mornings are nice and cool and I’ve decided to have my coffee outside this morning while I visit my fave blogs and write this post. It’s also a chance for me to enjoy some of the work that we’ve decided to finish around our house in anticipation of the house tour. Call us crazy, but we laid brick in the 100 degree heat yesterday. My husband did most of the hard work, but I did the shopping for sand and gravel & helped ferry bricks back and forth. When we remodeled our house, we saved a lot of the brick from a wall that was removed and have reused a lot of it for a front walk and now a little landing pad outside of our kitchen door. Much better than the dirt that was there just last week!

New trellis with plantings
While my in-laws were here, we built the trellis in the photo above after seeing the pitiful ones available at the Home Depot. This past weekend, I also went to the nursery and purchased some Euonymus Sarcoxie, a broadleaf evergreen shrub that can be trained as a vine, to cover the trellis and ultimately hide our electric box behind the trellis. I also purchased a Daphne Carol Mackie Shrub which has beautiful yellow and green varigated leaves, along with some vinca to cover the foreground. I also harvested some much needed compost. It’s amazing how dark and rich the compost is, as compared to the color of our soil.

Designing a garden is a bit like making art, in that I have this vision of how I want my garden to evolve and delight in the process - but am often surprised by the outcome. This time next year, I’ll reap the rewards of my planting. Meanwhile, as my garden grows, I’m going to lose my outdoor photoshoot area. Although, I did just find a little tutorial on how to make an inexpensive light box out of cardboard and tissue paper which will work for jewelry and smaller functional pottery.

Tags: daphne carol mackie, euonymus sarcoxie, green ware, inexpensive light box

All of this work was built from porcelain clay that was flattened using a slab roller. It is all green and has not yet been bisque fired.
Just a super quick post this lovely Sunday afternoon. Ceramic production has been slower than I would like, but I am making huge gains in making the garage studio become a reality. I have moved furniture around our house and have begun boxing up all of my 2-D art supplies that are currently in my basement studio and will begin the process of dragging them to the garage.

Our TV room has become a 3rd bedroom, which my in-laws will love when they come out this next week. We have been making them sleep on a futon in the TV room for the past year and a half whenever they visit. Having an actual bed will hopefully be a pleasant surprise for them. With that accomplished, we were able to move the bedroom set that was stored in the garage into the house, thus freeing space for my studio. My current basement studio is going to become the TV room. The only thing left to move out of the garage is an upright piano and a very nice eliptical trainer.

We purchased the eliptical back in Maine because exercising out of doors was pretty much out of the question a good 4 months out of the year (ie. winter). Now, my husband rides his bike to work or takes light rail and I run nearly year round for exercise. So, we don’t need the eliptical anymore. It’s just a matter of listing it for sale on Craigslist.

Thanks to everyone who gave advice on SEO, I appreciate it and will be researching all your links. Oh, one last thing - today is April Fool’s day and every year, it never fails I manage to make my husband’s blood pressure rise quite a bit. This year was no different. I “confessed” this morning to having made a quite a large ticket purchase. I told him that I went ahead and ordered a brand new Skutt 1027 kiln with furniture kit and enviro-vent. It’s not as if I’m not planning a buy one eventually, just not right this moment. I should have milked it more, but relieved him of his agony before he had a heart attack.

Have a good week everyone!

Tags: ceramic arts, garage conversion to art studio, green ware, skutt 1027

I went to the Art Student’s League of Denver today to trim my pots that I threw last week on the wheel. Lucky for me, I remembered my camera, though I felt a little dorky photographing my work in public. There was another person in the studio at the time and I had to explain that I blog. And, what would an art blog be without pictures?

I mentioned last week that I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to remember how to throw and was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was like riding a bike! I was little rusty, but I didn’t fall off my wheel or anything. I decided to return today in advance of the class tomorrow so that I could trim (make pretty) my pots that I had thrown last week, so that I wouldn’t have to do it tomorrow. Ideally, I should have gone in last week because these were almost too dry to trim.

I should mention that when working with clay, it’s not WYSIWYG. I am working with a cone 6 stoneware clay body. When in its raw state the clay is a dull gray color, however, once I bisque fire the piece, it will become an off-white color. The same is true of glazes. I hope I can document this for you tomorrow when I glaze my UFO from last summer.

Back to the slide show…green ware is basically manipulated clay that is dry to the touch, but has not yet been fired in a kiln. I was going to say thrown clay, but it could also apply to ceramic work that has been hand built as well.

I have been busy updating my website this week and even started a new “Earth” series “soft painting”. Thanks goes to fiber artist extrodinaire, Lisa Call, who alerted me to the term soft painting. The image below is going to be the base for my painting. After looking at my last work, I was reminded of an intrusion. More to come on this later in the week.

On a side note, today marks my 200th post since the birth of my blog. I will send a fabric aceo to the first person who leaves a comment! Send me an email with your address if you are the first to comment.

Tags: art student's league of denver, green ware, igneous intrusion, pottery