This week I’ve been trying out some new glazes and also doing some hand building! Right off the bat, this glaze has jumped to my top 2 favorite glaze combinations. Its so interesting and unique! I love the matte sage green that pools to a sandy color, and then how the dark purple stripe is extra shiny in contrast. Gorgeous!! As for the hand building, I usually prefer to spend my time throwing, but since I’ll be teaching hand building next month I figured I should get some practice in- and I’m actually loving it! These small plates are a perfect quick project for kids, and the process is easy enough that you could make tons of different shapes with the right press molds. In the past I’ve made small plates thrown off the hump, which are perfect to sell as candle plates, teabag/sauce holders, jewelry dishes, or whatever else you might want to use a small plate for! They also happen to make very nice test tiles for me since they’re quick and easy …

For anyone who doesn’t know, WIP stands for work in progress. I work in the studio at least 5 days a week, so, I have a lot of progress photos! I think its really helpful when you’re creating anything to keep a record of what you’ve been doing; you can take a step back and look at what you’ve tried, and what worked and didn’t work. And personally I just love to see close ups of interesting textures or glazes! This week I’ve been trying out some textures with slip. I got some really interesting basket-weave and honey comb effects! Heres a vase and pitcher I was playing around with, freshly thrown and then after trimming and adding handles. I had another slightly smaller vase (you can see it in the first picture) but I dropped it right before I was going to trim it!! Ruining a piece is always sad but the larger one turned out so nicely that it makes up for it! I really like the combination of the soft organic texture of the slip …

The more clay you throw at once the more difficult it is. Centering a huge block of clay takes A LOT of muscle, which is why I usually do it in smaller pieces (as I did for this one) even still, once you have 25lbs of clay centered on the wheel, doing anything with it and keeping control of it as it gets taller is really really hard! I wanted to make this piece mostly to see if I could, and I had no real ideas about what it might look like before I started, other than that I wanted it to be a vase of sorts. I was pretty happy that I was even able to keep it upright to be honest! These pictures are the piece freshly thrown, and then after I’ve trimmed it and added some detail carvings. Its only the tiniest bit lopsided and the walls actually turned out pretty even! The bottom was a little thicker than I wanted it to be but I decided the leave it thick so …