Flower Lino-Cut Printed Covered Box
Carving house shaped lino-cut
This particular house shaped lino-cut was made for the article that Annie Chrietzberg wrote for the current issue of Pottery Making Illustrated (Jan/Feb 2009 pg 17-20) and this is the first time I’ve actually used it to make something clay related – ’bout time wouldn’t you say? I did just have a flash of an idea as I wrote that last sentence – excuse me while I make a note to self…. Okay, I’m back now and will test my idea later today. In case you’re interested, the house template is 5″ tall from base to peak x 3.25″ wide – the roof begins at 3″ from the base. Don’t ask about the .25″ – it must have been a good idea at the time. Want the template? Click here: house-shaped-template-pdf
Click on one of the images below to see larger construction photos of the “House that Cynthia Built”:
The box is not quite finished yet – I still have to cut the lid off, add some feet and a knob. I made it on Monday, so it should be leather hard by now. I make most of my covered boxes with “stiff slabs” meaning that they are already at the leather hard stage by the time I assemble them. To make this box, however, I used 1 hour old fresh slabs since I needed fairly pliable clay so that I could bend the eves of the roof without worrying about cracking – yet the clay also needed to be slightly stiff so that the walls would not flop over during construction. As with many things in life, timing is everything. 
Meanwhile, I am chaperoning a field trip to the Denver Art Museum and the Colorado History Museum tomorrow with my daughter’s class. I’m bringing my camera and also a sketch pad so that I can get some ideas for new designs. I’m always amazed when I see pottery from eras past - still very fresh – or maybe it’s just that there are only so many things/forms etc. that one can make with clay so we keep reinventing the past? Not sure what the answer is.
See you Friday,
~Cynthia
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Leaves hand built mug printed with linocut
I whipped this mug out last Thursday for something special that’s on the horizon…. Despite carving the design in the linoleum last summer, I hadn’t actually used the linocut to date. The template wasn’t exactly made for this type of mug, but I sort of like that the vining leaves are on an angle.
Linocut mug templates - I used the bottom left linocut for the mug above.
Here’s a couple of my linocuts – I’ve added at least 2 since then and have ideas for many more. I like carving the designs into linoleum because it’s a rigid material, maintains a uniform slab thickness and leaves an evenly distributed texture. And while I do use some commercial textures, I really prefer using my own imagery.
Meanwhile, I’ve been spending too much time online between blogging, social networking sites, Etsy Mud Team, my website, emailing and my volunteer duties with the PTA (which involves the computer). My husband was just a tad irritated with me last Sunday and I agreed that I need to find a better balance. It’s hard being self employed because as many of you well know, my computer and internet use is my life line to the world. So many opportunities have come my way and new connections forged that I might never have made without my computer.
I did ask my husband how many hours he spends on a computer at work – he hemmed and hawed and admitted that it was 8+ hours a day – but he emphasized that he leaves it at work. I asked him how he thought I could fit it all in? As a small business owner and mom who works at home the boundaries between work and home life blur considerably.
Nonetheless, I conceded to limit my tweeting, blogging, commenting, Facebooking, emailing etc. to 10-15 hours a week. I try to accomplish my computer time in the morning while having my coffee, but it doesn’t always work. If I put in 20 hours min. studio time a week, that’s still part time work hours on my part and allows me to connect better to my family. Regarding commenting on other people’s blogs – I’ve decided that rather than trying to digest my whole bloglines subscriptions in one sitting, I’ll answer those who comment on my blog first, and then attempt to read 5 feeds a day. That’s so much easier than 70!
Question: How much time do you spend online a day whether you’re for pleasure or business? What is acceptable – what is too much?
Meanwhile, I made up for the perceived neglect by making some home made artisan baked bread…keep in mind that I’ve never made home made bread before – but I found the easiest recipe in the world. I have to admit that it’s delicious and now my family doesn’t want me to ever buy store bought bread again!
Must run,
~Cynthia
Set of wine cups/shot glasses with serving tray
I read a recent article about the dangers (or maybe it was folly) of making new work for an upcoming show without testing and revising the original idea first. So, here I am less than one month away (24 days to be exact) from the Colorado Potters Guild Fall show in Nov. and I’m making new work. A couple nights ago, I woke up around 2 am and suffered through a bout of insomnia – my grandparent’s clock that makes noise every 15 minutes and announces the hour with the appropriate loud gongs reminded me that I should have been sleeping at 3am and then again at 4am. Normally, I don’t have problems sleeping through the night, but every once in awhile it happens.
fish lino-cut
All of a sudden, instead of counting sheep, I was thinking about pottery and clay. New forms popped into my head and I briefly entertained the idea of getting up and marching into the studio. I knew that if I turned on the light above my nightstand that my husband would be grumpy – so I allowed my mind to mentally visualize some of those forms in the dark of night. Vases, tea pots, covered boxes, sets, tiles and more floated through my head. After I heard the clock ring 4 am, I was feeling sleepy again and drifted off to clay filled dreams until the alarm buzzed 6am. Luckily, I was able to remember and sketch those ideas out in the morning.
Relief printed fish cups and tray
This isn’t one of the forms that I imagined in the wee hours of Monday morning, but it might have influenced my clay filled dreams. On Sunday afternoon, I was playing around with a lino-cut that my husband made this past summer of a fish bone skeleton and crafted this little set of 2 small cups and matching tray. I’m not much of a shot drinker myself, but the cups are a good size for hard liquor. I use similarly sized cups to drink red wine – and the tray could be part of the presentation, or maybe hold some light snacks. All three pieces are hand built from slabs of clay that were printed using the lino cut and a sheet of embossed paper.
Butter dish top template
Back to sleepless in Denver…. When I made the set (above) on Sunday, I noted that the tray was the perfect size for a stick of butter. True confession: Other than the plastic butter dish that came with my fridge, my other butter dish is a functional but unexciting white ceramic butter dish that I found at a thrift store years ago. My husband has been bugging me to make a covered butter dish for years. Consequently, my earlier observation about the tray must have triggered something in my brain that caused me to wake up and start designing a covered butter dish that night. First thing on my agenda yesterday, was to make a paper template for a slab built butter dish. I pulled out a stick of butter, along with my thrift store butter dish to get a good look at dimensions – then started measuring and drawing a covered lid on paper.
Figuring out the corner cuts for top of butter dish
The trickiest part was trying to decide if the corners should have a slight curve or come straight down at 90° angles. I was able to solve the issue by cutting on the diagonal at each corner intersection and then began the process of folding the corners to find a pleasing fit.
The possibility for a variety of other angles could make this a very versatile template
Lid and bottom - not a good fit
I didn’t account for the slight flare that I allowed in my lid template which increased the base perimeter, so I had to enlarge the bottom half of the butter dish template.
New larger bottom tray/butter dish template
Better fit between top and bottom
The alteration does make for a larger butter dish than what one would find in a store, but as a bonus, it will fit odd sizes of butter that one might find at a farmers market or specialty market.
Butter dish top and bottom mock up paper template
First butter dish prototype
I even added a decorative, yet functional handle to the lid. The one I own does not have a handle which I think is a poor design choice. The lid routinely slips out of my hands – it’s a wonder I haven’t broken it yet.
Butter dish side view
Once I roll out the clay slabs and print them with whatever texture or lino-cut I want, I place the paper template on the slab and use an X-acto knife to cut the shape out. I use extremely soft slabs of clay which can be a challenge, but allows for a seamless design and minimal joints.
Meanwhile, there’s so much external noise right now because of the election and all the bleak economic news that makes it easy to become mired in negativity and dare I say hopelessness. Surprisingly, I am oddly calm and more focused than ever before since I have ready experienced a pseudo personal crisis late summer/early fall before all of this really blew up in the news. It’s not that I don’t care, because I do, it has more to do with my recent decisions and my resolution to forge ahead with a new sort of intentional life that is helping me weather the storm. On a related note, I loved Whitney’s post on staying centered that she wrote a few days ago – perfect metaphor for clay people.
Back to the studio for me,
~Cynthia
This post is overdue by a couple of days, but don’t worry – I am not feeling guilty about it. On the contrary, I feel pretty proud of myself that I abstained for as long as I did since I’m trying to wean myself off my addiction to the computer.
I’ve traced the paper template for a large mug onto linoleum
I decided to take my paper cup template that Annie shared with us during a workshop I took with her 2 weeks ago and make a custom lino-cut in the shape of the template with very specific imagery. Before making this, I decided if it works out I’d make some more linoleum blocks to add to my repertoire. One of the hazards of taking workshops is that my work could end up looking like the presenter’s work and that’s the last thing I want to do.
Freshly cut linoleum
Since the template is basically a cone shape, I have found that the flat rectangular linoleum blocks don’t print the way I want them to since there’s a curvature once the mug is assembled. I used my poppy linoleum cut as reference for this one.
Freehand drawing in pencil
Traced the drawing in sharpie marker
Many of you thought that the black sharpie drawing was actually underglaze or some other material to transfer the image block to clay, much like a paper print. At this point, I’m simply using the lino-cuts as texture tools to transfer the imagery to clay. It sure as heck beats hand-carving each and every piece. Essentially, the carving is done only 1 time when I make the lino-cut and I’ll be able to use this for years. The sharpie marker basically firms up and simplifies where I need to cut since many of the pencil marks overlap.
Freshly carved lino-cut
Finished stoneware relief printed poppy mug
Well, it’s almost finished – this one is still green and must survive the bisque and glaze firings. I’m not in love with the handle template and am trying to figure out how to alter it to suit my tastes. I’m starting some glaze testing too using mason stains as colorants. I want a bright sherbet Technicolor palette. Some where in my blog travels one of you mentioned Colour Lovers – which is this wicked cool web based color and pattern maker. You can browse the libraries or make your own palettes and patterns. My daughter and I played around with this site the other day for hours.
I’m not sure whether or not I’ll be able to truly achieve this bright of a glaze palette since glaze chemistry is tricky. I’m going to start with the use of mason stains and need a couple of good base glaze recipes. I already have the celadon color so I really only need to work on the other 4. Yesterday, I spent the day reading up on the use of Mason Stains as colorants in glazes vs. oxides. From what I’ve read, the reds, pinks and oranges sometimes need a higher calcium based glaze to achieve the color shown and the presence of zinc can change the color. So, some testing is in order in the next week. I think I’m going to head over to the Colorado Potter’s Guild studio on Tuesday evening to mix up a few 100 gram batches of 2 different base glazes to start with. The glazes also need to be transparent to highlight the texture on my new work.
Frog Stoneware Box
On Saturday, afternoon, I finished up the second of 2 boxes I assembled last week. My relief printing efforts are the result of all the hand painted porcelain boxes I’ve made in the past couple of months. The boxes are incredibly time intensive and I need to be able to work more efficiently.
Duds
This became apparent when these boxes came out of the kiln either glazed shut or some otherwise damaged. I was heart broken, but if ceramics teaches anything it’s humility and working out the technical aspects of working with clay. So, after briefly flirting with getting a 9 to 5 job, wiping away my tears and frustration, I became determined to figure out how I can make better work with minimal losses. Somehow, the prospect of becoming a claims adjuster trainee for an insurance company just doesn’t sound too fun or glamorous.
Meanwhile, I have been losing tools left and right in the studio. I know that they can’t just get up and walk out the door and that they’re in there somewhere! The problem is that my studio hasn’t been properly cleaned in months. 1/4 bags full of different kinds of clay littered the floor, dust was everywhere, clay bits and scraps everywhere, trash, bits of paper, notes etc. were strewn about. So, I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning my studio top to bottom. It’s sparkling clean (well as sparkling as a ceramic work area can be) and ready for a new productive making cycle.
Have a great week,
~Cynthia
