Enough Already

Another lovely Spring day here in Western PA.

Although its theoretically Spring according to the calendar, I do believe Spring has not really sprung...it is still tightly coiled and laying back like a rattlesnake in the tall grass. And today that fact was underscored by the almost 4 inches of wet heavy snow that fell during the night. The wet snowfall continued for most of the day and then eventually turned to a misty rain more than anything. Slush, slush, slush.

My daughter had a two hour delay and we measured the snow and eased slowly into the day. But all this crappy weather and pokey moving morning didn't deter me from getting some more glazing done. I am underglazing a black line that loosely follows the carved areas and/or breaks up the surface space and then overlapping my mid range glazes around the surfaces. I have picked a color palate that I am interested in that seems to work well with the light brown clay body...an earthy but glossy caramel to yellow-ish glaze...a translucent aqua...a nice shiny white...a darker semi translucent brownish liner for the interiors ...and random bright accents of a few opaque glazes. Then its decal city of course...

Speaking of decals...I have entered into an unholy alliance with some inexpensive Ikea stoneware mugs. I was shopping at Ikea the other night with my wife and daughter when my wife reminded me of us talking about trying to re-fire some generic restaurant ware similar to the one I did for my friends at the Beaver Falls Coffee and Tea Co, see the pic at that link....so why not some of these clean Ikea forms!? Why not indeed?! Here they are pre-fired...I just put decals on and did some glamour shots of them in my kitchen. I will fire them and take some pics to post whether they make it or not...could be nice...could be a blistered, bloated and slumped pile of shards. We shall see.

 And a shout out of thanks to those folks who went to NCECA down in Houston recently and are posting pics either on blogs or on Facebook. Love seeing all the great work...oh well, maybe next year. Hoppy Easter to everybody...think Spring and send those thoughts my way.