14 April

Yaay a Clay Day!


It felt good to get my hands in clay again. The clay I'm trying this week is Goldbar Brown from Seattle Pottery Supply and is a ^04-6 golden brown clay. I'm waiting to pick up a steel order tomorrow so I was able to work in the studio on clay, getting some more Sea Tiles and Fish made. My thinking is that while I'm plasma cutting and welding the rest of the week, the clay work can be drying, so hopefully I can fire the kiln next week... I still don't have a good production schedule figured out for switching back and forth between mediums. It seems I just do what needs to be done, then try and fit in what I'd like to be doing. There is always way MORE of what NEEDS to be done, than time for what I'd LIKE to be doing! I'm probably just a bit cranky because I was wearing my shipping and receiving hat yesterday, preparing a huge box for Fireweed Gallery when I'd rather have been playing :o) But it felt good to get so much work shipped off, because sales have been great -whew. I'd also really like to get some new glazes ordered but first I need to test some of those ^6 glazes as recommended by Eric from my Seattle Pottery Supply visit, but even before that I need to prep some test tiles and pieces first. For me, making test tiles falls under the not-so-fun category of what NEEDS to be done. I've read that there are other potters who feel the same way -ha!

Today while making more of the Sea Tiles I discovered a couple of great new tools, one from my kitchen (isn't that where all clay tools originate from?!). The first is a handmade spoon my friend's woodworker husband made me for Christmas. The handle is perfect for getting the co
rners snug and smooth when I was doing some slab and mold work. The second handy-dandy tool I discovered was using a roughed up piece of plywood to make fish fin marks! The irregular grooves and ridges from the peeled plywood made great looking marks, similar to a fish's fins.

4 comments:

Patricia Griffin Ceramics said...

Hi Cindy! Wow, you are busy. Glad to hear sales have been great. I'm going to borrow your plywood/fish fin discovery!

cindy shake said...

HI Patricia! Oh, good! I love to learn tricks and tips from other people's Blogs and try to do my part but not as often as I would like since I still have soooo much to learn. Thankfully the Clay Bloggers are always so good about sharing, their insights and knowledge have sped me along.

Linda Starr said...

Beautiful tile above and cool tools.

cindy shake said...

Hi Linda, thanks for the post. I should have added that the tile was glazed with commercial Speedball Turquoise at ^05. I wet sponged away the top layer of the glaze because I wanted some of the shell details and the clay to show through. I like how it looked "wet."