some assembly required

Just the usual Christmas rush going on here.  I took on a few things this fall that set me back from where I'd like to be with my inventory.  There's a lot of pictures I've wanted to post the last few weeks, but it's pretty much been out of the kiln and into boxes either to the co-op gallery or the farmer's market.  I really meant to get some things to the gallery yesterday, but too many of them required assembly, which took longer than expected. Of course.  Then I went to take some pictures and the camera's batteries died, so in the afternoon while they were charging I finally got around to decorating for Christmas.  Well, half-way.

Here's the pictures I got so far.  I managed to load these pictures with partially charged batteries, tried to take a few more pics, but it was back to the charger for these worn out batteries.

 Seems like I've made a lot of critters lately.  I had an order for six turtles which I delivered at River City Farmer's market last Saturday.  No pictures (rush, rush).  A little Quickcrete in the brick and steel rods for the birdies' perches.
 

 I have not made large quantities of anything.  Wanted to, but because of the time crunch I just made a few of this and that.  Have made only four of these bowls.  Sold the two from the last firing.

Here's another of those assembly projects.  You can't see it, but there are holes in the end on the spoons and I shaped the end of the twigs to fit (thank you Dremel tool).  I'm sure a woodworker person could do this much more efficiently with their special something-something tools, but I got it to work. The stuff in the bowl is a mixture of glue and sawdust, which I dropped into the opening of the spoon to get a really good bond.  The sawdust is from what I trimmed off the twigs- what didn't end up all over my hair and face and glasses and clothes. Won't mention what it did to my nose.  Next time I will try drilling a hole in the end of the twig and inserting a dowel rod. Delayed logic.

 

So I started out with this on Tuesday and now, two charged batteries later, it is Wed.  Usually I keep a couple of spares charged, but I used one of them for something else so...
I worked at the gallery today and brought in everything you see here.  I may stop in the gallery on Friday afternoon and pick up a few things to take to the farmer's market on Sat. if they haven't sold by then.

Owl ornament.  I went with the Barred Owl this year.  Only made six of these.  One is set aside for a farmer's market customer who wanted one and the rest are at the gallery.

I made several sets of these "preppie bowls".  All different glaze combos.  I don't use tags on everything but I notice people seem to like them when I do. On some tags I might explain how the item might be used, other times I describe the process of making it, and/or what inspired the idea. I started doing this because I felt I should explain my flying nun baskets. That was 10 years ago, or so, and I had a great response to the little note I attached to those pots.  If I'm not present when customers are looking at my pottery, like at the gallery, then they will know something about my pottery they wouldn't have known otherwise.  It's one of those things that adds on the time when you're trying to get things ready to go, but can be worth the extra effort.

One of those magic glaze combinations.  This is a plum-black with a chun glaze over the top part.  I make several shapes of mugs.  The roundish shape makes it one of those cup-your-hands-around mugs. I expect to be using more of this glaze combo in the future. 

 

 

 

sample board, new bowls, other stuff

I took a quick picture of this sample board before heading out to the market Saturday morning to meet the customer it is intended for.  The tiles are about 2 inches square.  Since they are only glaze samples I didn't take great care with exact size.  The end product will be 6 inch square tiles. I attached the sample tiles to this drywall board with Velcro so the customer can move them around to experiment with color combinations and streamline her choices.  These are some of the glazes she was considering, plus a couple of extra I threw in.  I was a little confused by some of the glaze combinations the customer was talking about so I thought this might help to clarify things for both of us.

 

Below are some bowls I've been making for the Empty Bowls Project.  I have made most of these in a chawan tea bowl style.  I would have liked to have gone a little looser with these if it were not for the fact that they are supposed to function as soup bowls.

Used two different clays- a tan stoneware and an almost white stoneware.

It's been slow going.  These bowls have been the first things I've thrown since the wrist problem.  I soon found out, even though the clay I am using for each bowl is only 16 - 18 ounces, that I had to limit myself to throwing 6 or 7 per day.  And it helps to take a day off to trim and take pictures for my Etsy shop now and then.

 

Salt pigs out by the kiln. I don't have many salt pigs left and had a request for one with one of my green glazes so made a few while I was at it.

I listed part of the succulent planters on Etsy and took the rest to the market. I found some inexpensive plants at Lowes and kept the rust colored planter in this picture for myself.

photos- new and improved, I hope

My photography background paper came today, so four hours later I had things set up in the basement.  I'm missing one light, but tried taking one picture just to try it out anyway.  Looks promising.  I chose this particular salt pig to photograph because of its highly reflective glaze.  It gave me fits to photograph before- all that glare to deal with.

 I saw this set-up for photographing pottery some months ago- http://dmichaelcoffee.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/shots-of-pots-on-the-cheap-and-low-tech/.  I was reluctant to try it out because it looked like it takes a fair amount of space. But I was taking so much time fussing with lighting and not getting satisfactory results, I finally gave in to trying another way.  This is a cheaper version of Michael Coffee's set-up.  That's foamboard being used as the reflector panel.  I'm using a 13 watt daylight compact florescent bulb in the clip-on lamp.  The backdrop paper is supposed to be neutral gray, which is one of the colors Michael recommended, but they sent me thunder gray.  So I'll pick up another light soon, play around a little with the positioning of the foamboard, and see what happens. 
Update- I had an email conversation with the company that sold me the paper.  They said they have two warehouses and neutral gray is labeled thunder gray at one of them.