Mrrf.

This is my cat, Josie. We have a lot of cats, but she is by far my favorite to draw. (Shhh! Don't tell the others.)

I put her on pretty much everything. She's on t-shirts, mugs, plates, and she's even a plushie fleece pillow.

I'm going to Cincinatti for day two of the Sarah Horn tile workshop. I already made a Winken, Blinken, and Nod tile, but I decided I needed a Josie tile as well. Josie is getting pretty up in age, so I want to be sure her regal, adorable, and perpetually angry visage is preserved for posterity, and is shared with the entire world. Soon, I'll be able to make hundreds of Josie tiles from the plaster mold I make today. Then, we can take over the world! MWAH-HAHAHAHHAHA!

Ehem.

It took me a bit of sketching to finally get something I liked. I had to go out and observe the Josiecat in the wild, in her natural habitat (on the floor, behind the couch). I took a bunch of photos, and was delighted with her smoosh-face laying on the floor pose. When she's laying around outside in the grass, I like to call her Jungle Cat, and Fierce Jungle Hunter. So it wasn't much of a stretch to come up with my final design. (Making the caption about her being a Jungle Cat was my dear husband's suggestion. We have been giggling over this drawing ever since.)

I hope this turns out well. I'm excited to be able to make a lot of Josie tiles. I really like the old comic book spin on this one, so I definitely want to make more in this vein. Maybe she will have a whole series of tiles!

Podlings

New doll jars in progress. My little podlings.

I've been pretty busy the last three days, but unfortunately I've neglected to take pictures of everything I've been doing. I did go out back and snap quick photos of the doll jars I'm working on. I'm not 100% happy with the forms, but I'm working on pushing them further. I'm having some trouble throwing exactly what I have in mind, but I bought a new box of clay on Tuesday, so I'm going to give them another go once I get these closer to being finished.

I can already feel that this blog post is going to lackluster. I wanted to sit down and update you all on what I've been up to, but part of what's been going on is that I'm coming down with some nasty sinus crap, and it's making be feel loopy and sick. I took yesterday to rest, only going out to the studio briefly to check on things. Today I feel better, but I did way too much today, and with the heat and all the clay dust, my head feels like it weighs 100 lbs.

I went to a tile workshop on Tuesday in Cincinnati at Core Clay, but i forgot to take pictures of the tile I was making. Sarah Horn is teaching the workshop, and her work is just wonderful. It's a 4 week workshop, so I'll be back there next week to cast my master tile in plaster. I made one tile while I was there, but I think I'd like to make a second here at home and bring it there to get a couple master casts made. It was a fun class, and it made me wish I lived in Cincinnati just so I can hang out with that crew. Laura, Sarah, and Daniel of Core Clay are hilarious and a lot of fun to talk to. It's going to be a good month.

I got my first batch of mugs stained, and they're in the bisque kiln along with my pendants right now. I hope they all come out good!

I'll have some pics on Saturday of my bisqued stuff, as well as pictures of the last day of my kid's class. And tomorrow, I should have some progress to show on those doll jars. I'm excited to get working on those, and I've got some sketches I'm very pleased with.

Covered in bees! Help!

I've been doing more sketching to get ready for making more tiles and cups. Thing is, as much as I love drawing, it feels more like I'm procrastinating. I need to just sit down and make the cups and tiles. I've been doing studies for a couple weeks now, and I only made one tile (see above). I really like the way my Thumbelina tile came out, though!

I guess I shouldn't be so hard on myself. Even with a house full of people to help me watch the baby, it's still hard to find uninterrupted time to work. Not to mention I'd much rather snuggle with Maddy than get any real work done. I don't think anyone can blame me for that;)

I start back at the clay studio on 18th, so that will at least be time devoted to making and doing. I'm pretty excited to get back in there. I'm debating which craft fairs to apply to this year, if any. Should I just stick to Etsy and applying for juried shows? I'm just not sure what I can handle yet. I wish I could hire an assistant!

Unrelated to ceramics, I had a pretty eventful day today. My husband is a beekeeper, and he's been getting new hives built and ready for three new boxes of bees. I haven't taken pics of the hives yet, but they are really cool! He's trying a different kind of hive than the traditional langstroth hive. This year he built two topbar hives, which are supposed to be a more natural way of keeping bees, allowing them to make their own comb from scratch instead of using man made frames of beeswax. You can check out this website if you want more info about this type of beekeeping. It's really fascinating!

Top bar hive

Anyway, today his first hive swarmed, which is to say that they felt their hive was overcrowded, so they left the hive en masse along with the queen, and sat along the back fence on our neighbors property. He came knocking on our door this morning to tell us they had swarmed, and my husband was at work and couldn't get off. So, brilliant woman that I am, I decided to try to go out there and catch them myself. Normally you try to knock the whole mass into a box, seal it quick, and then replace it in a new hive, or expand their original one. Thing is, Nich had told me they are somewhat docile when they swarm because they're distracted by the queen. I totally overestimated how docile they would be, and went out there without a protective helmet! Dumbest move ever, right? In my defense, I wasn't quite awake yet, and was a little panicked over the thought of losing our established hive, which had been thriving.

Not my pic - I pulled this from Google - but this is what a swarm looks like.

They stung me about 8 times in the face, ears, and neck, and I had to go to the hospital because I had a moderate allergic reaction. Now I'm all swollen and sore, and I have to take benedryl and steroids for a couple days. This is particularly stupid on my part, because you can't take benedryl while breastfeeding, something that didn't even occur to me when I went out there, knowing there was a chance I might get stung at least once. Thankfully I have some breastmilk stored in the deep freeze to make it thru a day of taking benedryl, and then hopefully I'll be ok by then.

I just want to be clear - this is not something that happens all the time! Nich has kept bees for years now, and most of the time they do not sting us. Bees are not aggressive, and we've been known to be able to open the hive without them even stirring, even without using a smoker. I've walked through small clouds of bees in order to refill the sugar water at their hive, and as long as I'm calm and don't bother them, I never get stung. I did that every week last summer without wearing any protective gear at all. Bees do not attack you unless they have good reason, because they don't survive the sting. We normally feel very safe keeping bees. In today's case, I just felt a little too safe, and took for granted the fact that they're still an animal that can hurt you if you don't respect them. Today was just a total loss of rationality on my part. You can't whack a ball of bees into a box and expect them to not get angry! Lesson learned.

The good news is, we did get the bees into a box, and Nich will reinstate them in a new home tomorrow morning. There is also a chance that the swarm was a split with a new queen, and that we might actually get two hives out of this ordeal instead of just saving the one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we just got a free hive out this adventure!

Less talk, more rock.