Glaze loads

I just love glaze firings.
Not the process so much as the results.

It's always with anxiety, that I open the kiln to see
how the load turned out. (Especially when there's a couple of
pieces being fired for someone else.)

Here's a link of all the pieces from this load, (scroll over each
item to read more about it.)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12928209@N04/4198973856/

The kiln gods must be appeased. If enough of me has gone
into the work, they usually turn out well.
But there's often a piece or two that don't quite work out,
or (as in this case) a lovely piece that gets damaged.
One of my sun faces had a witness cone melt onto it. DAMN!
A small disappointment, that can easily be resolved.

I made some wall scones, for dried flowers, and they turned out very well.
I also made a couple of little bowls with a heart in the middle.
I like the smaller one, and will experiment with the darker one. I'm gonna
touch up the heart a bit & re-fire it.
The lily candleholder is complete & I'm really happy with the way it turned out.
The eyeball is a bit weird, but cool.

Some of the smaller pieces are for jewelry, so they will need to be assembled.

Eventually I'll probably list some of these items in my etsy store:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/smilingbluedog

But if you are interested in something, just contact me: smilingbluedog@yahoo.ca

Time in my studio

Today I spent a good part of my day working with clay in my studio.

I don't get to do that as often as I'd like, because there's always some other things that

I need to do, like: go to work, do the dishes, feed the dog, make dinner, do the laundry,

get off the computer, or something else that uses up my time.

Anyhow, it was a rainy day today. My favourite weather for working with clay, because

it doesn't dry so fast, and I like to take my time. I wanted to make at least 2 sun faces, and

something to hold all my earrings and whatever else popped up in the process.

I started off with a bucket of left-over clay I had to recondition. (I love using new clay from

the box, but since I had lots of time today, it was a perfect opportunity to dig into the bucket and get dirty.)

Sometimes it's fun to take the slick lumpy clay scraps, and wedge them out into a nice ball .

(It's also hard to take pictures when my hands are covered in clay).

Once it's conditioned enough (doesn't stick to my board or hands) I roll it out onto a board, and make a nice slab. I use an old rolling pin (that never made a pie) to flatten out the clay, draw my sun face outline and then cut it out with a sharp tool!

Once the outline is cut out, I shape little pieces of clay to form the eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, then "stick" them on.

I lay the sun face over a round sponge (to support the basic shape), touched up the face,

smoothed and shaped it a bit. Now it's gotta sit overnight so it'll be a bit harder, so I can add the hanger on the back.

I made 3 sun faces and various other simple pieces. The

bird head here is going to be my earring holder.

I'm not sure what the eye is going to be for, but I can never have

enough eyes.

Ok, so it's not a kiln load, but it's a start.

Once these pieces are dry (in a few days), I'll smooth & clean them of dust and

add my initials to the backs, and then they will be ready to fire.

If I do this a few more times, I'll have enough pieces to fill up my "new to me" kiln,

and see how it works.

P.S. ( Hubby was kind enough to barbeque burgers and corn for us, so I didn't have to

make dinner. )