Greenish mug with texture and metallic highlights.

I made this on my basement wheel and glazed it with Seaweed (color) over Iron Lustre. The bumps are made from tk-1 texturizer. I fired this in my kiln to cone 5 but I had some pinhole bubbles in the glaze... So I had my pottery teacher fire it to cone 6 in our classroom kiln. The shiny quality of the glaze was mellowed in to a satin finish that I really like.

I gave this to my friend Tracy because:
a: She's awesome.
b. She turned me on to Weeds and then lent me all the seasons on DVD.

Protip: get to know tracy.

Four blue mugs for Bart

I made this set for my friend Bart in exchange for a brilliant bottle of pinot noir. They are made from ckk6 porcelain with grog and feature blue float over Chun plum glazes. These are homemade from wheel to kiln.

Glow in the dark waves hat.

I made this from slate-blue Rowan All-seasons cotton and Bernat Glow-in-the-dark yarn. This was part of Googleserve 2010 and the hats went to chemo patients. I made 2 hats and collaborated on a third and then I volunteered at the Marra Farm.

Chris models this hat in between fighting fires and handing out foos-shamings.

Two red mugs.

Two tall red mugs.

Two porcelain mugs made from Seattle Pottery's CKK6 with grog. The glaze is UmberFloat over FireBrick fired to cone 5 in my basement kiln.

Coffee-brown leather Man-Bag.

After a long hiatus I am back to making. My newest hobby is leatherwork.

I cut this from a whole 6oz (thick) veg-tanned cow hide. It has internal pockets made of lining leather. I colored it with "Dark Cocoa Brown" water-based stain using my airbrush and I applied a color-fast sheen by hand. I hand stitched and hand riveted it in my basement while watching a season of Dr Who. The aged-looking brass findings are from Joann Fabric. This is a skills-building prototype for a larger laptop case for my macbook (that I plan to start after a holiday craft sprint.)

OMG! I made a sink. Part 2

So, I have taken a vacation from blogging for a while since I began the sink project months ago and I can finally reveal the results!



I waited ages for it to dry slowly to leather hard and I gently trimmed a simple foot for it and disengaged it from the plastic bat. I was leery of inverting it and supporting the weight of it by the rim so I did not carve out a nice ring foot even though there was like 1cm of material to work with. Because of this, the pot is substantially heavy. On the other hand, it's a sink so its stability is actually a good thing.

Then after it was bone dry, (again ages later) I gently brought it down to paint it with sapphire blue terra sigilatta. After letting that dry, it was fired and the glazing began. I started out with a base of Blue Satin glaze which created the yellow/mocha background and provides a seal over the whole piece as well as a hint of mottling. I poured the glaze over and in to the vessel since it was way way too large to dip. I then added chrome green, green mottled, light blue mottled, and finally ultramarine blue drips from the rim on the inside and out. After each drizzle stage I stepped back the glaze with a green abrasive pad so that the glaze would not get too thick and mar the coat. It was really important to me for this project to have a complete inner seal.

On the outside, the glaze disengaged in places leaving a dark greenish blue burnished texture that is really interesting.



The mounting plan is a simple one... A pop up drain with a wall mounted faucet. I have contacted my architect Chris about designing an infinity drain so that if the sink overflows, it will run down the edge and be caught by an external drain channel that is hidden by river rock. It's just a thought but I saw his design and it looks supercool.

OMG! I made a sink!

So I had this wild idea the other day... I am working with an architect here in Seattle on finishing my attic and one of the finishes I needed to choose was a sink for a new bathroom. After looking at some sinks and considering all the glass/metal/porcelain options... I thought, "I could probably do that." The last set of pots that I did had a really nice aquatic looking interior with a nicely repeatable set of glaze steps so I decided to try my hand at making a sink.




I first threw a nice tall (but mostly cylindrical) pot out of 14 lbs of Dove porcelain. There was not so much grog in that stuff so I had a hard time with it wanting to flop over at the rim... so I figured that I would try again with a denser clay.

I switched to 16 lbs of CKK6 (with grog) and after a marathon of centering, I pulled up a nice tall cylinder about as tall as it was wide (maybe 10" at the base?) Then I used a nice tall rib to compress and normalize the walls. Then (using an 10" board as a stupidly long rib) I gently leaned the walls out to create the bowl shape. In a week or so when it gets 'leather' hard I will trim out a drain and carve a nice looking foot to hide the pipe.

This is by far the largest thing I have ever thrown and with a little luck, it will survive the trim and make it to the kiln without getting too screwed up. I don't know... it's a pretty full class at the community center this term any anything can happen in the next two weeks. Wish me luck!

A collection of Vashon orange pots that came out great!

These 3 came out awesome. I am loving Molasses as a base color with vibrant highlights and a mottled glaze for texture. The first thing my pottery teacher said when I came in to pick these guys up was: "Can I take a photo of those?" I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. These 3 came out so good that I am considering making a sink (we're remodeling our house) and I want to glaze that sink in the fashion of these pots.

Carved Vashon orange vessel with blue green treament.

This is the final in the set of things I treated in the same fashion... as I said in the last posts...

This pot was coated on the interior with sapphire blue terra siglata. Then the rim was coated with molasses brown and the exterior was layered with tx-1 texturizer, milky brown, blue mottled, denim blue, light blue and speckled ivory. The interior has tx-2 texturizer and chrome green and green mottled. Karen carved the rim.

Carved Vashon orange vessel with blue green treament.

Karen and I gave this pot to our friends Nick and Allison as a wedding present. It seemed appropriate since Karen and I both worked on this piece and since they had their reception like 10 blocks from our house, why not have a piece made in the neighborhood?

This pot was coated on the interior with sapphire blue terra sigillata. Then the rim was coated with molasses brown and the exterior was layered with tx-1 texturizer, milky brown, blue mottled, denim blue, light blue and speckled ivory. The interior has tx-2 texturizer and chrome green and green mottled. Karen carved the squiggly line on the rim and on the waist with a small ball-point burnisher after the piece was dry but before it was fired.

I really like how the carving and the texturizer hold on to the mottling and give a feel of flowing liquid to the outer part of the piece. I also like the darkly aquatic finish on the inside... The inside is not sealed up past maybe 3 inches so, one probably shouldn't fill it to far with liquid but it would make a nice vessel for dry goods, kitchen tools, loose change, chopsticks or dried flowers... The list is endless... Like all hand crafted pottery, it could go in to the oven but thermal shock should be avoided by never putting it in to a hot oven (instead place it in a cold oven and then raise the temperature.) The finishes are all food safe but the geometry of the piece doesn't really lend itself to food service.

Ovoid Vashon orange pot with blue green treatment

This pot was coated on the interior with sapphire blue terra siglata (a paint made of fine clay and colored oxides.) Then the rim was coated with molasses brown and the exterior was layered with tx-1 texturizer, milky brown, blue mottled, denim blue, light blue and speckled ivory. The interior has tx-2 texturizer and chrome green and green mottled.

Cracked black bowl with blue green treatment.

This black clay bowl S-cracked but it was so nice that I glazed it anyway. I used tx-1 texturizer and blue mottled, light blue and molasses glazes. The crack makes it a good flower pot if I can make a plate to go under it.

Blue and green klamath buff plate.

Sadly this plate came out at little wobbly and got worse in the high fire. It's going on my wall I think.

My Second teapot, this time more awesomely

This is my second teapot that looks WAY less crappy than my first. In fact the one harsh criticism I have of this one is that I broke the spout because it got too hard before I trimmed it. Other than also having a slight dribbling problem, I think I did good.

My first teapot!

In all honesty it's a crappy little pot that is nowhere near as cool as the teapots I flubbed earlier... However, this one has a lid that fits, a handle and a spout that mostly doesn't dribble down the front. Sure it looks like an 8 year old spray painted it a little too thick after making it from cat litter but still... It's my first teapot.