These are my latest forms… and canvases. I feel as if I’ve found a new way to breathe life into my work. I’ve got new forms and a tedious new way of treating my surfaces. I’ve decided to go all out and use the right materials for the job, even though they are a bit pricey. I’ve finally found the perfect way to translate my drawings into my ceramic surfaces… and it’s turning me into a studio addict! I’ve been spending as many hours in the studio as my body can handle this week– today I feel rather out of commission, because I fired a big kiln on Friday and when I unloaded it there were enough re-fires to fill a small test kiln… so I fired again yesterday. In addition to the re-fires, I threw in a few of the mugs from above, so I will have pics of the finished work hopefully later today or tomorrow 🙂

This bottle (above) is in the bisque state– I painted a thin layer of underglaze on it as a test to throw into the big kiln on Friday. Luckily, I did get color at cone 10! But unfortunately I was too caught up in working yesterday to remember to take a photo of the finished bottle… I might just take a quick pic of it along with the mugs later today…

THESE are my newest of new pots… I finished decorating them at around 1:00am last night. I did use a photo reference for the orchids, but obviously I didn’t try to match the drawings exactly to the photo. I just drew the main structuring lines that characterize an orchid 🙂 The blue underglaze goes a bit darker than I thought it would, and the green goes lighter, so we will see how they look when they get finished. I was really excited about the forms of these tumblers– I made a new rib in the tool making class a while ago, but I didn’t plan on this form at the time. Oddly enough, the teardrop-shaped rib made the perfect profile at the bottom of the pot pre-trimming. I like the crisp line I get from trimming to that point, but the rib made it really easy to match the inside of the pot to the outside 🙂