Sadly, my first sort of commissioned piece was an urn for my sister's beloved canine friend, Mickey.  Since my sister is a Mickey Mouse fanatic, and her dog was named after Mickey Mouse, she looked long and hard for a Disney urn for him, but couldn't find anything suitable.  So she asked me to make him one. I knew it had to have Mickey ears, and be the red and black Mickey colors, but I was really pleased that I could also use Mickey font and add my own handmade paw print stamps to it, for a really special result (with sincere apologies to the Disney Corporation for license inf ..read more

I had the honour recently to take a one day workshop with Kinichi Shigeno, and learned some of his techniques working with cobalt. I wasn't sure quite what to expect, other than I looked up some of his work, and it was quite detailed and beautiful.  So I brought along 2 bisqued plates, a vase, and a mug, to decorate. Kinichi brought some cobalt powder, which we mixed with water in a tiny cup, for our detail work.  Jay had also mixed up some cobalt solutions, for which he had made some test tiles.  The darker stain (which went on purple) was labelled 6388 mason mix, a ..read more

I was pleased to pick up my first new pieces from this Fall session.  Actually, all 4 leaf platters were started in the late summer, in July.  But I've finally managed to glaze them. Let's start with this monstrous leaf, from my gunnera plant (which you can see behind me, to the upper right of the photo). As you can see from this photo, it is actually a small gunnera leaf.  One of the smallest I could find, and still almost more clay than I could handle.  I am trying to remember how I made it.... (1) This platter was formed from a slab of Willamette Yellow clay, into wh ..read more

I posted a few of the items from the horsehair raku workshop, but what's exciting about the raku firings is not just the result, but the process.  So here are a few process shots of some of my pieces. My small vase, getting smoked inside and on the bottom, and just about to start adding horsehair: And then getting ferric chloride sprayed on it by Linda : My cat getting horsehair applied: And ferric chloride : And cooling down : My polar bear, just finished applying horsehair and sugar : Still too hot to handle: My lidded jar, which I haven't posted yet: And the other 4 pieces ..read more

I really need to take some better photos of the 5 items from the horsehair raku firing, but here are a few for now. My favourite for sure was this little polar bear, created from WSO sculptural clay : I thought he would look good in horsehair, but he turned out better than I expected.  Especially how the horsehair followed his brow line.  The little dots are sugar.  I love the sugar. There were suggestions that I make a tiger next time, or other animals.  I think I would like to, when I have a chance.  Although I don't know when we can realistically hope for another ..read more

Continuing on with some of my pieces from this Summer, before I post the recent horsehair raku results....  How about these pieces? But first, I don't believe I posted the results of the totem pieces I was working on in May 2018...  Here is the full totem : Other than the topper, my favourite piece was this one, featuring cherry blossoms : (11) This ball was created from Columbia Buff w/ Grog clay, pressed into two matching slump molds, and then combined together and decorated.  I love how the Bamboo glaze breaks on the edges of the cherry blossoms and twigs, and the brown ..read more

I am falling behind on posting my new work, but I'm going to try to catch up on my summer items before I start getting more Fall work finished.  So here goes with a set of leaf plates and such. I made these plates since I had a bit of time and clay in between making the big gunnera leaves, and they allowed me to experiment with different glazes, before I committed to something for the big plates.  Unfortunately, they were not quite the results I had wanted. All of the leaves were created from Willamette Yellow clay, which fires quite dark.  I was hoping the glaze would brighte ..read more

The funny thing is that the 2 gunnera leaves I brought to the studio to create bowls from, are actually among the smallest leaves on my gunnera plant.  The biggest ones, they wouldn't fit in the kiln, nor would I have the strength to lift them, unless I made them in sections. Anyhow, here is the first gunnera bowl, which survived the bisque firing with only a small crack.  So I have my fingers crossed (when they're not in clay) that it will survive the final firing intact. I prepared a slab using the slab roller, and pressed the leaf (with some of the prominent veins shaved down t ..read more

I was happy to be able to pick up my first few items from the July pottery workshops before glazing the remainder.  In particular, I was able to see my first two seashell / beach themed footed plates, which helped with glaze selection for the final two. I'm very pleased by how these pieces turned out. (Some days the glazes actually work for you instead of against you!) : This is a shot of some of my pedestal plates in progress : And here they are, one by one : 1) This was my first footed plate, thrown from 1200 g of Columbia Buff w/ Grog clay, which is a wonderful and versatile gri ..read more

I am so happy to be back in the studio for July, as June and August the studio is closed.  Since I'm not in a class, I have only 4 hour workshops on Wednesday and Sunday.  So I have been very focused during those times, making as much as I can, as my head it exploding with ideas of things I want to try. I have been trying to make items suitable for the horsehair raku workshop in September, but I keep getting distracted by other ideas.  Sunday I threw, trimmed and added pedestals to 3 plates, along with throwing a nice little vase, and an egg, both of which would be suitable for ..read more