Baby plates for babycakes

Hey look! I remembered to bring my camera to the studio with me for once!

Finally, FINALLY got a big dipping bucket of the new recipe for Maggie Moo's Blue-Green glaze mixed up. I am super happy with this version, and it looks fantastic layered with all the other studio glazes. Thanks to Maggie Schlebecker who did her school science fair project on glaze testing and provided us with her recipe. Hooray girls and science!

I got a cake plate out of the kiln, which warped just as I expected. We have been working on making a cake plate in my Tuesday night class that could double as a chip and dip when flipped over, but the bowl as a base just isn't enough support to keep the plate part from warping in the kiln (especially when you use porcelain, like me). It's not completely horrible, but I do want to refire it because I'm not satisfied with the glaze application. I will probably use it for Maddy's birthday party if I can improve the glaze on it.

Why yes, that is a birthday gator! Or a crocodile, which ever you prefer.

These are kid's plates I'm working on. One is for Maddy! I can't wait until she's old enough to use it! I'm going to get them painted today. I cannot wait to make more of these. They're so fun!

Last but not least, I got my painted pendants out of the kiln. What do you think? I keep wanting to sit down and roll out more of these, and do some different shapes, but I haven't had the time. Maybe after the baby party extravaganza?

If anyone is interested in the glaze recipe for the Maggie Moo glaze, let me know. I'd be happy to share!

Spring fever

I know it's not really spring yet, but this week has brought blue skies and at least one 70 degree day, and all the bulb flowers are sending up shoots. I'm even seeing a few blooms. I've been getting outside more, taking Maddy for walks and to the park when it was warm enough.



I finally finished painting the backs of all 4 pendants. I gotta get faster at these! I just procrastinate so much when it comes to painting surfaces. I doubt myself. I know that the more I paint, the better I'll be, but when I know I'm sending something to someone, I want it to come out perfect, and I always feel like I could have done better. Oh well. I am pretty happy with these over all.

I bought a respirator, and I did a second shellac resist bottle on Wednesday, then painted it with blue engobe. Wish it luck!

Finally, one more altered bowl. It still needs handles, but I did a split scalloped rim on this one taken from Gary Jackson's blog. He does lovely things to finish his forms. *sigh*

My husband joined a weight loss challenge at work, and I've been wanting to eat healthier, so I'm joining him in trying to eat better and exercise more. The nice weather outside has given me a nice boost, so I'm kind of excited about it. Plus, I have an iPhone, so I got two nifty apps to spur me on - Endomondo, which is a GPS fitness tracker I use to track my walks, and The Eatery, which is a social food diary app. I take pictures of everything I eat and drink, without counting calories, and people can rate how healthy my meals are. It definitely makes me think about what I eat, and I'm less likely to grab quick junk knowing it's going on my permanent record;) I'm only on my third day, but it's been nice eating regularly, and making food for myself that I can share with maddy because it's healthy. I sit down with her in the morning and we share breakfast, which is really nice.

Tonight is Stephen Wolochowicz's closing reception, so pics to come! I'm looking forward to his slide lecture tonight, and his workshop tomorrow. Gotta see how he makes those forms!

Pendant progress

I have a dear friend from back home who recently asked me if I'd be willing to create some jewelry to sell in her Aunt's shop. I had been toying with the idea of making some porcelain jewelry, but I wasn't sure how to go about it. I wasn't sure what kind of things she'd want for the shop, but happily she asked me to run with it and make things similar to my drawings and sculptures and things.

 I decided to start simple, just to get my feet wet. I made 4 little circles to use as mini canvases, and painted some faces on them. I was really inspired by a video on Ceramic Arts Daily about monoprint transfer on clay. Even though it's meant to be a process for clay slabs, it was a really good painting tutorial too, because you get to see her build up her colors and highlights. She started with a red and a yellow color background, and I loved seeing the way the painting build-up was affected by the different colored base. Definitely worth a watch. I started each of my four faces with a different color to build up from, and then played with color based on the background.

I had a lot of fun with these, and I'm really happy with how they turned out. Making mini paintings lets me play with design and color on a small scale, and fully develop the painting in a short amount of time (like a couple of baby naps!) It's really lovely to sit down in the morning and have a cup of coffee and paint. I'll definitely be experimenting more with jewelry designs, and figuring out ways to make cool things that still look like something I would make. I hope you enjoyed seeing the painting process on these. To be continued!