Last one: more pots

OK, I'm done with my ceramics class. Here are My last pieces.

Remember the raku pot from the previous post that was supposed to look misshapen? Here is another one. I like the crackley glaze.

And another misshapen pot. I made this the last day when I had nothing else to do. My professor suggested I just try throwing something huge on the wheel. This was one. I had it fired at a very high temperature and I only glazed the inside.

Here is the second of those ("throw something huge!") pots. I thought it would turn out white white, but it turned out white with brown spots. Kinda cool.

Here is the bug pot. Can you name all the bugs on it? Sorry the pictures are kind of blurry...

I call this one the cabbage leaf. Think along the lines of a giant, funny colored cabbage... And then I put funny lines on the side (not pictured).

Last, but not least, The Robot Box! He doesnt have a name yet, so if you have any ideas, let me know. And yes, he has a screw for an eye. And an outlet for an ear.

Here is the gingerbread house I made all by myself. (the pattern, the frosting, everything!) :-) After constructing the house and decorating the roof Dana pointed out that there was no door and no windows, thus making it more of a gingerbread prison. So I added the door and the windows, but nothing extravagant. The white blotch used to be a snowman. And of course now it looks like it barely made it through the bombing of Dresden, so there you go.

Finals are almost over! Woohoo!

The good, the bad and the ugly

Here is yet another ceramics post... Don't worry, there will only be one more after this.

Dana calls this the clown pot

pink vase

Raku vase try one: This is a Japanese style of firing where you get the pot and glaze glowing hot, and then you throw it in a trash can full of newspaper. The end result is supposed to be smooth and shiny. For some reason, my colored glazes always rippled up like lizard skin. And the edges of the glaze are sharp. :-P

This pot was to try out different glazes. The pink base color is the unglazed clay.

This is my artichoke vessel. It cracked during its first firing. But I really like the way the glaze turned out.

For the handbuilding portion of the class I had to make three "cereal blows" a la the pinch pot. So here are my glorified pinch pots. Two of them I can actually eat out of.

This is my attempt at a soup mug. I was going to make a pair, but I couldn't manage to get two that looked the same. Oh well.

"Soup Toureen"Also food safe. See how the glaze got all drippy because I double dipped the rim?

"Fruit Bowl" I like how it kind of looks like clouds... Right now it had pears in it. Also food safe.

This one is the bowl that my professor said I could sell in a boutique for 20$. woohoo! I like it because its shiny.

This has been named the ugly pot. I have dreams of throwing it down a mountain. Again, it was for seeing how these glazes turned out. It has "I love you" in russian written on it. Spelled wrong. Go me.

"Bell Jar" tehe... Dana requested a bowl glazed entirely with the metalic glaze on the rim of the clown pot.

"Flower Pot" This was where I layered a whole bunch of glazes on top of each other and wiped them back in order to find the desired shade...It ended up kind of interesting. and the green glaze on the bottom is completly wrong, but you can't see it so it works.

"Birch Pot" I was pretty proud of how this one turned out...

And don't worry, I have one more pottery post to do.

"You know, the red pumpernickle..."

I was explaining my first experience with "The Importance of Being Earnest" to Dana and that is what he said to me. At first I thought he was being ridiculous, as he is wont to be... but then he explained further and I figured out he meant the Scarlet Pimpernel. One of his old roommates had downloaded it and we had watched it with him. It is now one of my favorite things to watch and I'm considering getting it on Amazon...

You reap what you sow

This is a boring post: just thought I'd warn you now. And the title has to do with the fact that Dana and I have been insanely busy with nothing very interesting (school, work).

Things are winding down in classes which means all the huge assignments you have been dreading all semester are coming due. I have two 8-10 page papers and one 6-8 page paper due from now till the end of the semester. Plus all the regular reading assignments. I finished one of the 8-10 page papers last night and I am pretty excited. I was so excited to be done I did the dishes. Woo. The paper is for my English Major Capstone class: Tolkien and Friends in Literature and Film. I wrote it on The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story. No joke. The culmination of almost five years of work is The Princess Bride and The Neverending Story. Originally I was just going to write on Princess Bride because I couldn't come up with anything else. Then after I had turned in the outline for my paper, I remembered The Neverending Story and how much I loved the book. So, after some discussion in class I melded the two papers together and passed it with my professor. It's about the frame characters in the book and how they interact with the interior text and what we as readers can learn from them as readers.

The bad news is that this is the easiest of all the papers I have to write this semester :-P.

Dana went to his Bug Conference in Reno, NV. He usually brings me back a little something for my birthday when he goes. So this time he asked me what I wanted and I jokingly requested a shot glass. When he came home he had a cool beetle necklace (picture to come?) and a shotglass that said RENO! on it. I guess I asked for it...

We are both REALLY excited to get out of town for Thanksgiving. We are going to visit Dana's folks in Vancouver, WA. I can't wait to get away. Just the change is a big deal for me.

So that's our boring "what we've been up to recently." The next posts will have pictures. I Promsie.

And if you need a good book to read, read The Princess Bride by William Goldman or The Neverending Story by Michael Ende.

More Ceramics

Here are some more pieces from my ceramics class. Most of these glazes are the high firing glazes meaning they are food safe. I knew the black and pink one would turn out the way they did, but the honey pot shaped one was an experiment. So was the pencil cup: I layered two different glazes and ended up with a much deeper blue. Enjoy.




This is the detailing I put on the side (that you never see...good going, genius)


Notice how this glaze (this is a low fire glaze) kind of melted? I coated it evenly on the inside and the outside, but (especially the glossy outside glaze) tends to drip a lot.



And this is the honey pot. I named it that. Just now.