Vases

Yes! Again I am trying to make tall vases on the wheel, it is hard, at least it is hard for me. I can do small vases, but my goal is to make something tall, with fat walls so I can carve them and thin wall so I can paint them.

I got help from my teacher Scott with this vase, and I want to do something exactly like that all by myself, perhaps I have to practice more, perhaps is time to buy a wheel and practice more at my house. I am working on that, but every time I think we can afford one something happen, roof leaks, pluming problems, car problems, there is always something, but hopefully this will be the year.

Anyways, this vase was decorated with mishima and later sprayed with spodumene and dijon glazes, cone 10. I wanted to make a clear difference in the color of the bunnies and the color of the background, but I couldn't every time I tried I couldn't totally control the spray gun. I was thinking a different spray gun, the one you can use to paint but I have been told that the consistency of glazes and the consistency of ink will not be the same even when it kind of look the same, bummer!

I was also looking the videos of a wonderful potter, his name is Charlie Tefft, and he makes the most lovely pots, he also sprayed his pots, and in his video, of course, it looks like it is not that difficult, but IT IS! I am going to keep investigating and experimenting with goof luck I will be able to find something that works for me.

Here is the vase, tell me what do you think or suggestions.

July Exhibits

I am very happy to let you know that I have been accepted to a couple of exhibits yayy!!!. The first one is title "Handmade in America" and it has been hosted by the The Singing Stone Gallery in Ybor City, Tampa. The opening reception will be on July 4th. I submitted 3 photos and they chose the white rabbits jumping around. I think I showed you the photo before, but just in case, here it is.

The second exhibit is the "5th Annual Nature & Wildlife Exhibit" hosted by the St. Augustine Art Association. The Exhibit will go from July 26 to August 31st. Again, so happy, specially because is a theme that I love and works perfectly with what I do. I sent 3 photos and they chose the "Running Hares"  yay!!!
Here is the photo of my plate with the running hares. 

I will let you know about the opening receptions and post some photos :)










 

Running Hares Plate

Hello,

Sorry I have been lazy and not writing and a long time. I have been doing some deep carving and later I had a hard time deciding how to glaze them, there are 3 plates, this is the first one ready, there is the second waiting to be fired in the c.10 kiln and there is another one yet waiting for me to do something on it. Good news is that I finally made my mind, and it will be so pretty IF it turned out the way it is in my head. It even had a tittle, yeah right? shouldn't those things comes later it is done and not before it is done??? I know.

There is a small vase that is also ready, I need to take a photo of that too. You will love that because it is the same design I tried a year ago, and that it gave such a headache, remember the one vase that I almost destroy when I apply a latex, no? No worries I will write everything again, probably tomorrow.

This plate is the result of a new shape I am working on, it is not quite I envision but when I trimmed it I knew how to fix it, again it was so thick and the only thing to do when I pot is too thick is to deep carving. The bunnies or in this case, hares are part of the same idea of my previous bowl. I love animation, yo know that I wanted to be an animator when I was 18 or so and I did not become one, so now I just do this designs. At least I am a bit closer to that dream that before, don't you think?

Now that I am looking at the photo I notice that one of the hares really need to exercise more, hahahaha!
What are your thoughts?

Four Big Bowls

It is really amazing and scary how fast time goes. The studio opens its doors again the second week of January and right now we are about to start April (!!) And during all this time I have been busy working on new projects, but they just take forever to be ready.

I had accomplished to center and make a 5 pounds or clay bowl yay!! I even think that a 2 of those bowls maybe had more than 5 pounds the weighing scale at the studio is kind of tricky or perhaps I didn't know what I was doing (most likely). Anyway, I made four big bowls, the walls of the first two were a bit thick so I decided to do some carving and the other two I decorated with the slip.

I have been looking the pottery of Carol Long, and I noticed that my work is in a way similar to hers. I love her pottery, she is sooooo amazing!!! She seemed to have found the perfect combination of form and surface decoration the way she glaze her pots wow!

I on the other hand, am still working on that. So, I decided to decorated my bowls in my usual way and keep in mind her glazing technique (I don't really know for certain how she glazes her pots but after looking tons of photos of her FB page, I think I have an idea). When I started the glazing fallowing what I thought was her technique I find out that I was wrong, my glazes run again and again, perhaps her glazes and her slip decorations are thicker? At the end I did what I always do, just painted with brushes instead of the slip trailing tool. although in some areas that tool was very helpful.

On Monday I will be able to see the result, I really can't wait, hopefully the glazes would not run and if they did I hope they do in a nice way. Just one more day to see them.

In the mean time here are the photos of the bowls in greenware state. . . Well, apparently it is not easy to recover photos from instagram to my computer. So while I tried to figure it out how to do it, here is the link, I did some bunnies thinking that eastern is coming and my usual birds on a tree.

I will take normal photos on Tuesday to post them here. You can go to the link and see more photos on my instagram account, and of course you can follow me there as well. See you on Tuesday, I will post the results.

Happy Sunday!

I am back again, I found a way to use my instagram photos on Picasa. Here they are.