Started the house last week; figured out the roof and put it on tonight. Carved the big vessel this evening after letting it dry slowly under plastic. Tentative title is “[I want] the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

Finished the vase I started last night! Porcelain tends to be a finicky clay; this piece was pleasantly easy.

Also cooking is another larger vessel; we’ll see where the design goes on that one.

Porcelain vase made over a few days (it’s been humid). Rolled slab and made body, added bottom. Since this is a larger piece than the tumblers, I used a different tool for carving, and the proportion of figure and ground is different. As I was carving the vase yesterday, I was thinking about a drawing assignment I once had - to fill some number of pages with beautiful marks.

More whiskey cups. The rocket ships have made a comeback (they’ve appeared on bigger cups) as have the dancing people. Also added the slash indentation; even on the small guys, it catches the thumb nicely. The gloss is a little bit of wax on the rim (it burns off) to help the clay dry evenly. I like how these are going.

Have a few pieces in the soda kiln right now; they’ll be unloaded Friday afternoon.

More bowls! I’ve made some of thse before - all BB SFAO on stoneware, soda fired to c.10. Looked nice piled together in the late afternoon sunlight.

Back from bisque, I call them pita plates. These are slab plates with upturned edges, in the same shape as the Meditteranean flatbread. Tile 6 slip on FCSI, about 12″ long. Might pre-spray with soda to make sure they don’t come out dry.

Two tall vessels or vases. Made the bodies (FCSI) Saturday from thin thrown slabs, attached the bottoms today and did a first coat of slip. They were ridiculously big slabs, as large as one leaf of the Trib, and it would have made more sense to use the slab roller. But the clay was in good shape, and I wanted to see how far I could push it. One vessel stands at about 24″ and has the slashes that are typical of my tumblers, the other is a more modest 18″. Have to take the slip application slowly so the clay doesn’t get oversaturated and collapse. After several more coats of Tile 6, they’ll be ready for carving and bisque.

More of these fun guys are back. The small ones will be shooters, or sake; larger for whiskey (or whatever, but I have to call them something). Tile 6 on FCSI again - a favorite combination. I get a kick out of making these little drawings. Bisque gets pretty unexciting to look at; there’s nothing good for a backdrop and the lighting is fluorescent. I’ll get a few shots of the finished ones soon.

A few photos from last night at the studio.

Both fireclay iron stoneware with tile 6 slip. Top piece carved while wet. Bottom painted with RIO. Both to be soda fired. At left, a few blocks awaiting interior glaze and soda firing.

FC stoneware w/iron, trailed with RIO slip, probably will use a shino glaze to bring out the iron, may soda fire.

Four bisqued whiskey cups (FCSI w/tile 6 slip) waiting to be glazed and soda fired.

A few tumble-stacked houses waiting to be washed with oxides and soda fired.