more plates

Here are some more plates I made. Tom drew the fox and the cat, I drew the planes. These are small, sandwich size, but I'd like to make bigger ones.

As far as using pots as canvas goes, plates are ideal since they are flat, but then the question of usability comes into play- would you want to eat off a plate with a cat on it? Where do you place the food? How do the colors correlate with most food colors? Should they just be decoration? These are all things I need to experiment with.


And, for the technical details: Cone 10 Stoneware, clear and white glaze, black stain, and orange underglazes.

plates and drawings

I've been working with surface textures treatments lately, specifically with various methods of applying stain. Typically stain is applied after a piece has been fired once, bisqued, but with these plates I added stain while they were still greenware. First coating them in wax, then carving away the wax where I wanted the stain to be, I was able to use the clay as a canvas. I was a little nervous about messing up the drawings, so I had Tom draw some as well.



Glazing the plates I also used a completely new-to-me method: coating areas in liquid latex. Layering glazes can be tricky, especially if you want a crisp line, around a drawn image for example, and liquid latex can be applied with a brush and peeled off after you dip the piece in glaze. It was messy, smelly, and I ruined a couple of brushes, but I like the way the plates turned out and will probably use the latex some more.

and more mugs... with mustaches!

mugs, mugs, mugs.

Been spending a lot of time in the studio making mugs. The ravens are custom order, using a method called scraffito, carving away a layer of black slip to create an image. The others are variations on my monster mugs theme.

ceramic decals

I've been working on ways to combine my illustrations with pottery, and it seems decals are the obvious answer. Though there are many methods of making decals for ceramics, from screen printing glazes to ordering online, the easiest method is simply using a laser printer and special decal paper. The iron oxide in the ink fuses with the glaze during an additional firing at a low temperature, essentially making every piece a blank canvas. Oh, the possibilities.

RAWR.

Monster mugs. More to come.

etsy!

Well I've created an etsy site as you can see by the link on the right. Who knows if anyone well ever come across it among the other hundreds of thousands of artist's pages, but at least I'm trying? The only negative effect this site might have is now my friends will know that their wedding/birthday/holiday presents are items that haven't been selling on etsy.

Right now I've only got ceramics posted but hope to include some paintings and photos as well. So check it out, I might even cut you a deal. And hey, if you're in Minneapolis you won't have to pay for shipping.....