no whine zone

I admit it- there's been some whiney posts.  Usually I try to keep the frustrating aspects involved in pottery making to myself rather than risk annoying, boring, or insulting readers. So, here's a short non-whiney story:  A young woman in a nearby town checked out the River City Farmer's Market site because she was looking for locally made gifts.  She saw the link to my blog, found pictures of mugs she liked, went from there to my etsy shop, and sent me a convo from the shop site.  She wanted to know how she could buy those mugs- She could not get to the market since she works Saturdays.  I let her know I'd be working at the gallery Tuesday and could bring the mugs in then.  I did, she showed up, took the mugs, yea!  She got the local hand made product she was looking for which, I think, gave me as much satisfaction as it did her.

Here's what's on the pottery table, besides the bisque ware I really need to get glazed but put off to get in some last minute clay work.  I seem to detect a bird theme.

Applied a gray slip over the slab and dragged a wood grainer from Lowes through it.  The crow will be filled in with a black engobe

Tried this printing method on wet clay slabs for the first time. I've seen this method in a couple of places. Here's one: http://printpatternproject.blogspot.com/2011/03/image-transfer.html

I used a 50/50 by weight combination of Mason Stain and Ferro frit 3134. See how it works out. The paper is a tissue-like paper that separates the decal paper I've been using for the decal transfer printing.

Some hand-built birdies.  Going to go minimal with these-  White or off-white glaze with a little color just on the beak and eyes.

I didn't jump on the Christmas ornament band wagon this year.  I have a few stars left from last year and was planning to make a bunch of different types of owls this year.  Was.  I found (sorry if I sneak in a little whining here) they just took too long to make.  Mostly, I was surprised at how much time I spent painting the owls after they were bisque fired- close to an hour. Changing the design to be more stylistic, less realistic might be something to think about.