Fairy House

Finally, I started a Fairy House for the garden, this has been an old project at the studio, almost everyone has made one but me. I was always busy doing something else. . . now I am busy too but I really, really wanted to make it.

Here it is, still on greenware

My teacher Kathy had made a pattern for the house itself, the roof and the chimneys, after that you are on your own. It is fun because every house is different, the doors are different, the windows, the decorations. My will be super different because the studio didn't have Phoenix clay so I used  Speckle Red or was it brown, so it will make a difference. I was not really thinking on that but I knew that if I wait 2 more weeks for the clay to arrive I, again, will not do the Fairy House.

Will glazed on Wednesday, hopefully will be ready next week, I will take photos and let you know.

Branches Tree Plate

Second plate carved ready!
This is a cone 10 plate, the glaze is Dijon, you can see some little yellow spots here and there. Next time I will only apply red oxide wash in some parts and see what happens. I am happy with it anyway. What do you think?

Blue Jay Nest Vase

Finally I made a new version of the Blue Jay Nest, last one I did was around this time of year last year and as you can read it in my previous post ( Blue Jay Nest) I was not happy about it. There are some important changes in the new version, first of all is a bigger vase (yes!!!), second I had no intention to use any latex ever again and third I did not use as much glaze as last time.

The theme is as you can see the same, the difference is the glaze, wow! Glaze does make a huge difference.
I am debating myself weather I should leave the background always empty or if I just keep trying to find a glaze that works for me.



Blue Jay Nest 20014

 

Blue Jay Nest 2013

 

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!!

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.

In the land of purple trunk trees

Well, this is the final product, I had never play with underglazes this way although I do had use some before, for sgraffito purposes, 4 layers of one color and that's it. This is different, I was trying to paint with them the same way I paint with water colors. I did not turned out how I was expecting. However the result is fascinating, the greens are so psychedelic even when I only use a little and very, very watery. The brown turned purple, the orange/red turned out really red. Kiln does do magic!

I still have one more to paint, I will try something different and perhaps I will try a whole new set with this decoration, oh the future  what magical things will they have prepare for us.

I still need a title for it, some people had called Alice in Wonderland imaginary, some others psychedelic, and some kind of putrid (!!) What do you think?

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.

Blue birds

Birds, birds birds...