limiting choices

I unloaded the kiln today and thought I'd show a few pictures from that firing, also a couple of things I'm working on currently.  I tried to control myself with the glazes in this firing.  And the only testing I did was a little experimenting with layering my existing glazes.  I liked it.  Usually I experience a certain amount of anxiety deciding on individual treatments for pots.  Limiting my choices made things so much easier.         

I'm really pleased with these pumpkins.  If  I had started on these earlier I would have made more.  I'm glad I stopped when I did, though, since they took forever to dry.  I suppose being a closed form with just a little hole in the bottom had a lot to do with that.  The really dark pumpkin is the plum glaze I tested recently.  All the others are in the same family- Grace's Base with varying degrees of iron oxide, rutile and/or yellow ochre added. 
  

A couple of acorn finials glazed in temmoku.  I brushed on some white glaze first- too much, I think, on the right one.  I like the gold color formed from overlapping these glazes but this might be bordering on garish. 

More temmoku.  I had a request to make a french butter crock in this glaze with a bird drawn into the lid.  Maybe you can see it on the third crock from the left if you click this picture.  I also made a few without the bird, playing around with brushing the white glaze under the temmoku or using a little oribe over it. 

Normally I would not have settled for plain white, but the picture of these candle holders with red Christmas candles popped into my head as I was contemplating glazes.  Wouldn't that make a nice grouping?  If someone bought all three, that is.

Rolled these out yesterday.  This is not my usual clay.  It has a rich dark color which cannot be appreciated because of the fluorescent lighting in this picture.  The finished plaque on the left is how these should end up looking.  If I'm going to make more of these I'll have to hurry.  The dogwood leaves are turning and soon they will be too brittle to press into the clay.

I'm about to put the knobs on these cookie stamps.  The bottom shapes are the bisque fired forms I use to make these.  Thought I'd get stocked up for Christmas.  Making these doesn't exactly push my creative button anymore, but people tell me they enjoy using them.  Plus, the cookies are really good.    

plum?

Got a glaze firing in while waiting for the latest pots I made to dry enough to bisque fire.  Glazing always takes such a major amount of time for me.  Too many choices, too many individual treatments.  While I was glazing I gave some thought to which glazes I'm really drawn to.  I know I would benefit by creating a more cohesive look.  I also know my work would go a lot faster if I didn't treat practically every pot as a separate canvas.  Something to work towards, I guess, although I'm sure I'll never completely put aside my bad habits. 
A few things out of this firing:

A while back I saw a beautiful cone 10 reduction purple glaze in Clay Times.  I have tested a few cone 6 oxidation glazes that claim to be purple with no success. This glaze ( I know, bad focus) is called Plum Gloss.  Really, it's not black.  In just the right light you can see a hint of plum, or maybe eggplant. Brush marks are a rutile green glaze.  It contains a large amount of  Albany Slip substitute-but the glaze recipe doesn't specify which one to use.  I first tested this glaze with Laguna Albany slip sub which was a little more transparent looking.  Kind of warm brown temmoku. But I have so much of this other sub I made years ago and hoped I could get something good out of it.  I made this sub soon after finding out I could no longer get the real stuff.  At the time at least a couple of my main glazes contained Albany Slip Clay.  Neither the sub I made or the commercial stuff worked for me in those glazes.  Been shying away from it ever since.  I have a feeling this glaze is supposed to be more plum colored but there are so many Albany Slip substitutes.  So depending on which substitute you use... 

Squared mug.  The most comfortable mug to hold.  I have to admit this form is similar to another potter's work.  I met Elaine when I was working at The Art Studio, Inc. http://www.artstudio.org/  in Beaumont, TX.  I recently asked permission to use her idea and she said yes.  Thanks again Elaine.

This jade glaze is one of those that especially appeals to me.  Though I do not believe it lends itself well to surface decoration.  Some people  may find it too plain.  I struggle with walking the line between what I think I need to do to sell pots and what I really like to do.

 Tried this temmoku glaze over my standard white glaze. Nice gold dust effect.

Temmoku with turquoise glaze on bird.  Wished I had used the white glaze on bird after seeing what it did with the temmoku on the mug.

A little Oribe glaze over the temmoku on this french butter crock lid.

I'm trying to take advantage of the waning sunlight and not resort to the florescent light.  The day I took these pictures was mostly overcast. This satin glaze usually breaks to a gloss here and there, giving it a bit of an oil spot effect.  Didn't see much of that this time.  They look fine, just not quite what I envisioned. 

stripes, borax and shades of green

Got some pics of the latest firing.  Some good pots, some just O.K.  It's always a learning experience.  I've been thinking, lately, about how difficult it is for me to limit my glaze choices.  There might be a kind of consistency in shape and form, but my glazing and decoration is all over the place.  I don't think I'll ever be one of those potters who rely on 1-3 glazes, but I would like to work on narrowing down the choices so that my work has a bit more cohesive look.

  I'm using the only little sliver of direct sunlight coming into my work area in the summer afternoons.  It does show the glaze better than the overhead fluorescent.  This is one of a batch of candle holders I made.  This green glaze is popular with customers.  Its one drawback is it will crawl if applied the slightest bit too thick
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Here I am experimenting with a new glaze again- another green.  I like this glaze but it is just wrong for candle holders.  The color looks anemic to me.  But inside a bowl I think it could be striking the way the pooled glaze turns turquoise.

A salt pig.  I saw a video of John Britt making these on Clay Club http://ncclayclub.blogspot.com/2011/04/closed-cylinder-technique.html and I thought they looked fun to make.  They were.  For some reason they just seemed to call for stripes, so I used stripes on most of them.  This one has stripes of white slip, white slip tinted with gray stain, black engobe, and rutile wash.

Guess you can tell how much I'm into these stripes.  I have no idea how these will sell.  I haven't had a customer ask me about making one. It's not unusual for customers to ask me about making some kitchen specialty item I've never heard of.  Maybe I'll just be ahead of them this time. 

Salt pig with a flutter of leaves.

More stripes, with a few rutile dots.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, but, for one thing, having a stick right across the bird bath kind of gets in the way of the bathing bird.  For another, this glaze is just boring.  If I had applied an engobe into a textured design and then glazed it might have worked better. Or, hm... maybe just used a different glaze.

Testing, testing- this is the borax idea I spoke of in an earlier post.  I tried it on these two glazes. One is a rust matte and the other a glossy deep blue.  So, what I did was make a paste of borax and water and then flick it on this lid (a french butter crock reject) which I had earlier dipped in the two glazes. Used a toothbrush for flicking.  Pretty much no change to the blue glaze, except one spot on the side that got an extra heavy dose.  In that spot the glaze slumped and left a bare spot.  The matte glaze was really interesting, though.  There are little copper penny-colored spots where the borax hit.

    Billy on the table during the last glazing session.  Tolerated, if not encouraged, because she's cute.