Commissioned work!

Over the last year I have had a few orders for commissioned pieces.  Commissioned work always scares me a bit, afraid that what I am seeing and what the customer wants is two different things.  So far in every situation it has been a good thing and usually the item gets added to the studio.  I had a lady order kids plates and she wanted funny animal, so I practiced on my Grand kids and niece.

Rolling with the punches!

My days are filled with joy and disappointments.  I made this beautiful tray, it was 18" x 12", I attached lace impressed detailed clay to make ruffles.  I would show you this beautiful tray but it is in pieces, my shoulder caught it and broke off a chunk.  This morning I was checking the drying pieces and noticed a crack forming on one of my plates.  If I am going to go with the whole punch metaphor thing, then the platter was an all out fight, punches to the gut head and a kick to the knee, the plate was a punch in the arm.  Before pottery, I would paint and make cards, everything turned out every time which is the way I like it!  At the same time, I never ventured very far out of my little box of perfectionism!  I will make the platter again, probably today, well maybe not I am still too raw but when I do, it will be even better then before.  Nothing is for sure with pottery but I do find I am getting better and at some point I won't be afraid to try anything!

My bucket of punches!

First glaze firing in the new kiln!

I love my new kiln!  I was able to program a firing schedule which I got from, Digital fire Insight, this program fires the pottery perfectly!  As apposed, to my previous, hap hazard firings, some over cooked, some under cooked and some just right, lol!
I am writing this as I wait for the temperature to go down on the kiln, it is at 572 F and needs to be below 150 f, before I can open it.  I did however take  a peek and it is looking good!  
Here are a few of the pieces I took out of the kiln.  The colors are rich and beautiful; love this kiln!

Textured slab plates!

My hubby got me this roller for Christmas, it is an "Xiem roller"; it works great.  I did have a bit of a problem with even pressure but once the glaze is on it won't be noticeable.

First, I took a lump of clay and rolled it out to 3/16". To roll out the clay, I used a fondant roller, Walmart sells them in their crafting section, they have guides on either end for thickness. I have seen other people just use a couple a couple thin pieces of wood and a regular rolling pin.  Once you have rolled out the clay you need to compress the clay.  To do this, I used a red rib and went over it twice, evenly, in two different directions on both sides of the clay.

Once you have the texture on the clay, you lay the clay on the mold of your choice, in this case I used a plastic plate from the dollar store.  You need to spray the mold with cooking oil or cover it with Saran Wrap; if you don't do this your clay will stick to the mold.

In this picture, I have laid the clay on the plate. 

I use a needle tool to trim around the plate. Just run the needle against the edge of the plate; I start in the middle on each side and then go either way!

To finish off the edges, use a little roller; I had a brayer in my stamping supplies so I used that and it worked good.  Once the clay has set, you will need to clean up the edges, I like to use a tool that looks like a mini cheese grater, not sure what it is called.

Here is a finished plate, on this plate I used a doily.   Well that was my first tutorial, I hope everything made sense, happy potting!

New kiln!!!!

I am beyond excited! After 14 months of using this relic, I got a new kiln!

To fully understand what this will mean for me, let me explain my firing process with the old kiln.  Every hour I would flip one switch, this took a total of 7 hours.  After 2 hours of firing, I would check the kiln every 15 minutes, this usually took about 2-3 hours.  After that, I would manually, do a cool down, meaning I would flip off all the switches for 15 minutes to drop the temperature then I would flip 4 of the switches back on for 30 min.  So as you can see, on firing days, I could never leave the house.  One of the last times I was firing, I needed to leave the house and couldn't; not a good feeling!  Another issue I had was the temperature differences, the middle of the kiln would get way hotter than, the bottom and top, in some cases this resulted in beautiful pottery but usually it resulted in disasterous ugly blisters!

Here is the new beauty!
With the new kiln I basically push a button and that is it!!!  So now you can see why I am so excited!

Brand spankin new!

When I first started pottery my funds were low, so all the pottery I sold went into supplies and savings! Thanks to all my customers, after the Christmas season, I had more then enough funds for a new kiln!  I am sooooo thankful to all those that have supported this new passion of mine (pottery)! I am excited for what this next year holds! My mind is exploding with all sorts of new ideas!