Bowl #3

Here is a photo of Bowl#3. This was a very big bowl, the biggest I have ever made. 5.5 pounds of clay!! and I did it all by myself, centering, making it and then decorate it. I choose to carved because I do like carving a lot and the walls of the bowl were not to thin.

The theme was birds, of course, a bird from Lima, it is red and black, its name is turtupilin, well, that is how we Peruvians call this pretty bird. His real name is Pyrocephalus rubinus, here in the US is called Vermilion Flycatcher. This pretty bird is called in many different way around Latin America  some examples are  mosquero sangretoro,  atrapamoscas, mosquero cardenal, mosquero bermellón, saca tu real, atrapamoscas pechirrojo. 

Tomorrow I have to pick it up from the studio, hopefully the glazes worked well together. I will take some photos on Tuesday in the meantime  here are some photos I took in Instagram, there is also a video there if you feel curious, quality is not the best but gives you and idea.

That's all for today, is a gorgeous day outside and I am out of here :). See you on Tuesday!

 

Octopus's Garden Collection

I have been pretty busy lately, these days I am always busy and when not so tired, that I don't feel like doing anything, except watching Netflix. The new season of "What not to wear" is available on streaming and I am just addicted to it. I am not ashamed to admit it.

Also, I had catching on movies, the Hobbit and Catching Fired, are so good, you should go and see them.

You see, very busy ;)

Here is the Octopus's Collection, there are some more to come, I promise will posted tomorrow night. I posted this on my FB page and turn out to be quite popular, what do you think?

Coo coooo, coo coooo!

Burrowing owl (Athene cunicularia) tea pot. 

I am trying new forms, and something I wanted to do for a long time is a tea pot. Tea pots are a bit complicated, there is a lid and a handle and a spout and many things that can go wrong at many different stages. But still, I want to do that, and later a tea set, tea pot and cups that will matched. 

This is my first one, the lid came out a bit weird looking so after a lot of thinking I found that my lid and the head of a burrowing owl are very similar hahaha! You have to imagine that the head is coming out from a hole in the tree, at least that was my thinking. 

Why a burrowin owl because it is a Florida owl and I live in Florida and after seen a wonderful documentary in PBS about the Forida Wildlife Corridor I am more into nature than never before, the documentary open my eyes... it seems that wildlife were closer than I thought.  If you have the opportunity to watch it, don't think it twice and watched you will be amazed!!

Here it is, what do you think?

Blue Jay Nest

I have been lazy lately, I haven't take photos and posted in a while. I was working on making plates and mugs, I was hoping to have a set to post but the studio kiln was in a terrible mood and kind of exploited with my pieces inside, so I have to start all over again.

Here is one of my carved pieces. This particular one I don't feel so attached. It gave me so many problems, I tried to use a different technique in order to make the process faster and ended up working even more. I applied latex to cover the design in hopes that later will be easier to remove but no, it was horrible, I had also manipulated the piece so much that the blues in the piece faded. I am not happy with the colors but I do like the carving, I think I had to do a new version of it. I like how the nest is coming and leaving it without glaze it  adds more character to the piece.  I have to try it again SOON!!

Octopus's Garden Bowl

This is a B I G bowl for me,  as you may know I always have a hard time centering the clay. Anything beyond 3 pounds is such a challenge, sometimes I can, sometimes I can not, nowadays I am practicing with close to 4 pounds. This bowl will have had required at least 6 pounds, so I did something different, I made it with a slab of clay that later I slumped it on a mold. The process is slow, very different from the fast spinning wheel.

I did it because I have an idea on my mind, I wanted to make a big bowl with the "Under the Sea"  or "Octopus's Garden" theme, something big than can make people look at my table in future shows. Before I started the decoration process I realized than I have never had so much space for drawing, empty spaces scare me. I start thinking on my regular characters, jelly fish, octopus, fish, somehow it didn't seem enough for so much space,  I started to think on marine images and one image came to my mind, a turtle!!

Why a turtle, well, I should have started by telling that I have a friend, her name is Rhonda, she is a marine biologist and most of her work consist on  rescue turtles, of course there are more, something about the marine currents, the waves, the weather, the tide, the wind... it is quite embarrassing but sometimes I can not fallow her, I blame it to my lack of English words concerning marine biology, but perhaps I would not even understand it in Spanish either. Marine Biologist, get so passionate about their jobs, that I feel bad to interrupt them to ask silly questions, I get the big idea and I am happy with that. When I talk to her I feel a renew optimism, not everyone is evil, maybe not everyone has sold their souls to devil in exchange of money, prestige or fame. I am a pessimistic, I have no faith in humans.

However, I do remember a time when I was younger and really wanted to make this world a better place, I worked and volunteer in a couple of organizations back in Lima, but then, I found out the corruption, the personal interest and get into the conclusion that we are doom. But when I see Rhonda, and read her daily post on FB I feel better knowing that there are still some people working for us, protecting living creatures and their environment, Rhonda is one of them, isn't she the best!!

She works very early fallowing turtles paths, saving their nest, and much more, if a turtle needs help she will never  say: "Too bad, its 5 pm, I am out of here". Bad thing is that this wonderful people are badly paid, even worse than teachers, they don't receive paid vacations, or sick days, or retirement money, nothing, just good bye was nice to have you here, isn't it horrible!!

Thank you Rhonda for being there for the turtles, and for be my friend!

Awakening Cacophonie

Yes, morning are very noisy in the mysterious guy who lives in the tree can not sleep because baby birds are crying, and the rest of the neighborhood is busy on their diverse affairs.

Birds on Trees (carved pot #2)

This is the second pot I carved, I tried something different with it, after I stained it with red oxide I painted only the high relief areas and left the background bare, no glaze at all, The red oxide will give it an antique, woody look.This one is different that the first one, that was totally glaze. However,  I am still trying to find the right combination, I am carving like crazy, I will post more photos later.

Birds on a Tree #2

Here are some photos of the new vase, I will post the video later.

The birds are Red-bellied Woodpeckers, the same one live in my garden, at least that was my intention.

Birds on a Tree # 1

This year I want to make something new, I was thinking on making jars with lids because I want to learn how to make lids and also because I think jar will be easier to sell than bowls. After last year craft fair I learn something important: not many people want to spend money on everyday objects like small bowls. However, they seemed to be very open to spend, sometimes even more money, on objects that they will not manipulate constantly like a big bowls for salad, a table center piece, something that will mostly function as a decoration. So I think perhaps I should to jars, they are nice and can be very decorative on the kitchen or wherever they want to put it. Plus learning to make lids will be fun!

First thing to learn about jars with lids is that both of them must be made at the same time or at least take the time to measure their circumference before of letting them dry. I didn't know that when I made 2 cylinders in hope of making their matching lids next class (!!) Well, lesson learned!

I will have to make more cylinders and measured them if I want to make lids for them. But what should I do with these 2 cylinders? They are not very big and they are quite thick. . . my head was thinking on the future lids instead of concentrating on making their walls thin. So I question myself again, what should I do with them? Well, I still don't know, but I figure it out that will be a good idea to try some new decorative technique with them, something I like to do but couldn't have done before, and my answer was right in front of me, resting on the thick walls: I should carved them!

So I did it, I carved both of them and soon some birds on a tree came out of the thick walls of the cylinders. Here is a video of the first one I made. I will post the second tomorrow. I don't know yet how to glaze it or what will be the actual function of these objects but I am sure something will came up.

These cylinders are the first attempts on something new. Perhaps I will develop a new collection with this idea, hummm, what will the future bring to these birds on a tree??

Octopus's Garden Set

Pitcher and cups :)

Octopus's garden...

This is a new bowl, I am trying new animals like octopus, sea rays and fish... what do you think?

My super friend  Betsy Gordon, said my bowl remind her the song Octopus's garden by the Beatles, I don't know why I didn't think of that since I like the Beatles so much and I use to la-la-la (tararear) that song so much. Thank you Betsy, I will rename the bowls and the new plate that is right now in the kiln :)

Tumblers

Like I said, I have been practicing new forms besides bowls. I was making tumblers and trying different glazes, but in the end I think I always do the same, draw something on them. Here are my two first carved tumblers. I carved them free hand when they were on leather hard, then I add some red oxide wash and cleaned them and finally I add celadon green glaze and fired cone 6.

Saving the Greenware

I got two pieces from my teacher, she again asked me if I wanted to do something with them otherwise she will discard and I don't like that,  I will save anything (almost anything I must admit). Although I should also say, that some pieces don't deserve to be saved, I must learn to let them go....but not these couple.  So I did something with them. I did a sgraffito design with one of them, a bird, bring me back memories of the old good days in Lima, when I was studying drawing animation. I think one of my characters from the short film animation will show up again very soon :)  I wonder if Edith or Maria Angelica will remember it...

With the second vase I wanted to try a design with slip and carving. I didn't have the official potter tool, the slip trail applicator, so I used a piping bag instead. It doesn't work quite exactly as I planned, or maybe the vase was a bit to dry or maybe I just need more practice or maybe the slip had not the right consistency.... many maybes, I will keep trying.