Support Your Local Potter (even if you don't live close by!)

There is so much cool stuff in my Etsy store! Seriously, GO LOOK NOW! 

Sale in the ShellHawk's Creations Etsy Store!

What the picture says! 15% off your purchase of $60 or more!

I usually don't have sales, but I need to clear some space for 2023's new body of work, so hurry on over!

The shop will go into "vacation mode" on January 7th, not to re-open until (possibly) summer.

 

Out of the Firing!

 
And into the fire!

I have been pushing my Skutt kiln to live up to its workhorse reputation by firing day after day, nonstop, for the past four or five firings. As soon as it cools down enough to open, everything gets emptied and the next load goes in!

Case in point: these pieces were unloaded this morning and my large jack-o'-lantern and one of the jars are in their glaze firing right now. The jar is a second firing because the purple over the black wasn't very apparent, and while I don't really think slapping another coat of the lavender over the obsidian on a red clay body will make a huge difference for the good, I don't think it will hurt it any. We'll see! It's all mad scientist experimentation.

The two above are a good example of that experimentation. I wanted to see if the "Ice" celadon would give a contrast to the clay body and the glaze, or whether the translucency of the glaze would cause the color to wash out. Turns out it was the latter, but even so, these turned out well! I'm just going back to the drawing board to find a lighter, bluer, glaze to contrast with this chocolate clay body.

However, the celadons I used on light clay bodies were predictably wonderful! The True Celadon glaze never disappoints! (Long-time followers with amazing memories might remember I used it on this carved porcelain punch bowl set.) I used it on two of the carved tumblers and I never cease to love the way it pools in the low spots and accentuates the dimensionality of carved pieces!

 

The bat cup, while it didn't turn out quite how I expected, still maintained a spooky vibe. I plan to play with the next one and see if I can get better results.

I took the opportunity to play with stoneware glaze combinations on the new clay body, too. I love how you can combine Deep Firebrick with Indigo Float and get this gorgeous and vibrant combo!

On the Frog's Breath jar, that versatile True Celadon over a red clay body. It's a really nifty green!

And I *love* how these guys turned out! They remind me of the old, sepia-toned photos from way back when!

 Alright! Back to making!

WIPs!

My studio assistant, ready to leap into action!

Making, making, making! That's going to be my mantra this year. Since I have Midsummer Scream to prepare for, I get to start a big, fat making cycle and I am stoked about it! I don't know what it is about making new things for a show, but man, oh, man, it gets my creative juices flowing!

I also have a super (not very, but somewhat) secret project going to upgrade my booth space so my work can be presented in a way that grabs the eye. Quite literally, the sky's the limit! I dragooned a professional set decorator *cough!* *Dave Lowe* *cough* into designing and building it, and after our meet-up yesterday, I'm really excited to see what the next sketches are going to look like!

Meanwhile, I'm playing with new items to add to the staple of my jack-o'-lanterns and pumpkin people.

I threw my first volcano bowl because Tiki culture down here is a big deal, and many Halloween folks are also in love with everything Tiki! I'm working my way up to that traditional 32 oz. bowl, but I think the one above is a good first attempt, especially since I threw it in one piece. I may have to throw it in two in the future just to cut down on labor, but we'll see how the process progresses. The learning curve wasn't too bad, that first time!

I'm starting on bottle stoppers, too! This here guy has an indentation on the bottom where the cork will be glued in once he's done. I plan to slip-cast a limited run of them and see how they do. I'm keeping in mind that many people want smaller things because their funds are limited but they still want to support your work if they can. I figure wine corks will be a nice thing to offer them!

Lastly, I'm making a few more items for the Supernatural fandom. The response to my cups and tankards was wonderful (I still have a couple left in the ShellHawk's Creations shop, but it looks like they're going soon), so I'm making a few more. This will be the last run for a while, since I have to focus on Midsummer Scream and there are only so many hours in the day! BTW, advance tickets are still 40% off for a little while longer!

Well, onward with my day! More updates, soon!

One Day Closer

The Open House is on Sunday. The kiln is firing off the last SPN mugs to smooth out the roughness from a too-thin clear glaze application, but there are a bunch which turned out great! The above Pumpkin Person needs some clear glaze to get him finished off. The witches I'm sculpting will have to wait until after!

The last of the jacks I can reasonably finish before the Open House came out yesterday evening and got the clay dust wiped off of them so I can start glazing today. I plan to keep making Hallowe'en through the winter, as I have a couple of shows to apply for and want to show the folks who choose the work some new creations! Plus I have stock to rebuild. I plan to make time to create some fine art, too! I have had a series in mind for a number of years, and I'm finally ready to start.

It's the usual, crazy, before-show push, but I love it! It feels fantastic to get back to doing what I do best!

Filling the Glaze Kiln 2021

I got the glaze kiln loaded over at the local ceramics center. I hope they're going to start the firing on Thursday so I can get everything tagged in time for my open house!

I'm hoping the Supernatural cups I made turn out a little better than they did in my kiln, but honestly, even if they don't, I have a new clay body to make more, recommended to me by the nice folks over at Amaco. They're the folks who made the underglazes I used for the cups. 

By this weekend, if all goes well, I should be unloading the kiln and not crying my eyes out!

Almost There!

 

Y'all are probably wondering if I'm incapable of making anything but Supernatural drinking vessels, anymore, since that's all I seem to be posting, lately. The answer is, of course, yes! But there are a multitude of these to finish before my Sunday morning kiln-loading deadline.

Because "Assbutt" is classier in this font, that's why!

Throwing. A little drying. Trimming. A little drying. Pulling the handle. Attaching the handle. A little more drying so the handle can firm up properly. Carving the design and text. 

Then on to underglazing, sometimes with one color on the interior of the mug (three coats) and another on the outside (three coats) and then matching the inlay color with the interior when painting in the carved part of the design (three coats). And then they get to dry the rest of the way until they're what potters call "bone dry." Pretty important for them to be as dry as they can be before firing, otherwise they'll "explode" in the kiln as soon as the temperature hits 212°, the boiling point of water. The steam coming out of a damp piece will cause that area or areas to "explode."

Those are just the initial stages they need to go through before the first (bisque) firing. After that 24-hour firing cycle (slow up, hold target temperature, then slow cooling), they come out get all the dust blown off or washed off and are allowed to dry completely before the clear glaze is applied, either by brushing (again, the magical three coats) or by dipping.

It's time-consuming, of course. And it's honestly satisfying for me to know I'm making for a fandom which will appreciate all the time and effort. It's satisfying to know that no one else is dumb enough to put all this blood, sweat, and tears into a cup.

I've commented before in these pages that I'm passionate about everyday things being beautiful as well as functional. When you use them, they should, to quote Marie Kondo, "spark joy." For me, there's more joy in a handmade item than in something generic, made by a corporation for practical purposes, only. Yes, there are mass-market mugs with pithy sayings on them, and yes, they have their place, certainly! Even I have a few. (Somewhere in storage, I still have a mug from Klagenfurt, Austria, which I visited with my grandmother way back when. It always reminds me of her!)

 

But even so, I prefer the handmade.

Months of work, waiting to get packed!

Next is the very complex and nervous work of packing all these babies into bins to take to the ceramics place.

Nervous because they're at a point where knocking them the wrong way will cause an irreparable break, like the one below.

There's just no method I've been able to find which will reliably repair bone-dry clay and keep it together through all the processes so it can be a durable, functional piece. 

So into the trash this one went! Normally I'd throw it into my slop bucket and reconstitute it, but I had already underglazed it, and I can't mix the underglaze with the clay.

The good news is, there's still plenty to go to the studio!

But back to "complex and nervous."

 

Loading the bins is complex because packing unfired ceramics is actually a game of Tetris. If you have large bowls to pack, everything around them must be far enough away to not chip or break the rims, even when the intervening space is occupied by bubble wrap. If you have underglazed clay pieces, they should be put it with other items the same color so there's no cross-contamination with other colors or unglazed ware.

I use smaller bins because unfired ware is heavy and I can better manage them on my own, both for this purpose and for shows.

I started packing last Sunday, because the process always takes me longer than I think it will, and I really hate stressing myself out at the last minute! There's nothing like having a deadline and realizing, too late, that you need another bin or two and there's no time left to go buy them!

Well, alright, kids! I have another layer of underglaze to put on before I start inlaying, so that's all for now!

Wish me luck!