Post post firing post...

Yet again I am starting a post with...FINALLY, I have gotten around to getting this on my little ol'blog. I have been sitting on these images for a week or more now. Here is my last group of mugs and cups complete with images fired in...and a couple of just darn nice salt fired pieces that I could not bring myself to incorporate images into...heck, even for an image junkie like myself, sometimes a nice glaze is hard to improve upon. The dark clay body is interesting and works well with the tone of the decal but I admit to still preferring a very nice white stoneware over just about anything. I would say this is the last of my dark body mugs...maybe...ok, who knows!? The stumpy, softly squared mug that appears at the top of this post is my fave...it just goes to show that sometimes you have to take it all the way before you pass judgement on a piece. I wasn't so sure about this mug before it was fired but a good glaze job and also the graphic motif and additional glaze spots really made this guy sing. Click on the images below to enlarge and inspect!

This is a big beauty of a mug...over sized, probably much better for a beer than a spot of tea...I call this one the "Yoda Nouveau" mug. As for the mugs that appear below, one is more of a mug with a tattoo than anything...the decal is a collage of sorts made from early 20th century floral motifs and long squid tentacles...quite the bouquet. Its neighbor there is another of the dark

body mugs ...warm and earthy. The graphic decals are a mix of my own digital photography and other assorted floral images. The next two are thrown from a Jack Troy cone 6 clay body...I loved it...and it fires out so nicely. I have been putting some of these pieces on my Etsy shop and they can be purchased from there, while I have sold some already and a couple I am hording for the time being. As much as I liked the gas firing in the salt kiln with these pieces, I am anxious to start throwing pieces for the wood kiln...I am also anxious to be finished with my duties at the University this semester and to be able to return to the studio full time for the summer. I will be making, making. making in between firing kiln loads for Chautauqua again...but that's another post altogether...enjoy the images and happy May!

MMMMMM, MMMMM, GOOD...

Fresh from the firing... the waiting is over and I am very pleased with my bunch of new mugs and cups. We unloaded the kiln this past Thursday night and I'm so happy I'm posting images of some of my haul from the firing even before re-firing with decal images. There is a small handful that I will not fire images on to the surface and I have already begun posting them to my Etsy shop, please take a look. The cups that are on the shop site are really nice, I only made a small number of them and I regret that because they fired out so well.

The rich dark brown clay seems very unusual to me as it stands out in such contrast against the lighter colored glazes. I have a couple in the brown clay body that I cant wait to get a decal on...as well as this guy below, that is "glaze gorgeous"...he is a big fellow at 4 3/4" tall, 3 1/2" at the mouth and 4 1/2" across the belly.

That's a lot of joe! I tried using a little chun glaze here and there with the dark body in order to brighten it up some and I feel it was successful. I have been working up new graphics for this grouping of mugs and I am anxious to finish the surfaces with the images. This is one of my favorite steps in finishing...integrating the graphic image with the abstract background of glaze.

The grouping below was made with two different white cone 6 clay bodies. The white body really allows the glazes to show their color...I am not posting full shots of any as they are not finished until I fire the decals into them...so enjoy the tease here and I will post the final results next week. Time to get out in the yard...