The past few weeks I have been working through lots of unfired ceramics that I never finished before my last painting and firing cycle in November. You know - just like those bags full of UFO knitted projects. These pieces have been gathering dust -- some for a couple years -- and I have made it my goal to finish every single one of them and get them fired so that I actually have some stock to fill my website with. My kiln is larger than I probably need so it takes a lot of work to fill it up. It is an old Skutt 1027 with manual firing.
Decorating is a long process because each piece is different. With each piece, I look at the shape and then respond to it intuitively with flowers, leaves and other shapes. If I really want to make some money doing this, I would be better off having a few key motifs and just repeating them. But I am not good at the repetition thing because I get bored so easily.
Here are a couple of relief tiles I started making for The Farmer's 60th birthday a couple years ago. They too have sat gathering dust. I put some color on them and will fire them. After they come out of the kiln again, I am going to stain them to make them look old. These are experiments which are fun to try once in a while. The next birthday is coming up very soon so maybe I will make it a few years late. If I like them, I may make a mold of them and then make more. We shall see.
Now that the weather is getting a little warmer, I will be able to be in my unheated pottery studio and start making more ware to decorate. Looking forward to it.
You ceramics are soooooo cool! I never seem to get to your shop at the right time to by one!
ReplyDeleteThere is a lovely review of your book The Amazing Stitching Handbook for Kids on Mary Corbet's blog.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy reading your blog. I particularly love you fabric designs!