How Fun! Ornaments!

My learning this year leading to creating decals from my photography have been so much fun and turned out so much better than I expected. I love these ornaments. Sharing some here.

I can’t wait to start getting pictures of other breeds I love and get to working on them also. How much fun for next year.

Learning To Use Decals

I am not an artist. I do not draw or paint on clay. Nor am I a sculptor. I do not etch or carve on clay. I’ve tried. I intensely dislike what I see from my efforts. You can call it hate. I love what I see in others work when they use any of these techniques with their pottery.

So what is someone like me, who loves the imagery, to do. I love photography and while I am still in beginner mode it does not cause me the frustration trying to draw, paint, carve or sculpt causes. I actually feel as if I’m improving and I like what I see. That is most important. I like it.

I came across some conversations discussing decal work. I initially tried sending off for high-fire color decals and while they worked very nicely it was not the actual look I was hoping to see and it was a bit costly for my particular budget. Fast forward to this year. I keep seeing a name and work I like. Justin Rothshank's

He does wonderful work and has freely shared a huge amount of information about decals with the world of potters. Using the information from his blog I gathered enough tools to start my own series of tests using my own photography.

I am liking what I see so far. I have much testing to do and will share my steps as I go along from what glazes work well at what temperatures to taking a photograph step-by-step from photo to decal.

With the pictures below I’ve noted the clay, glaze, firing temp, speed of firing and what I’ve found with the decal or glaze.

All clay and glaze below is Laguna B-Mix C5 with grog. Glaze is Coyote Clay Shino glaze with Espresso Bean on the rim. Decals were printed on Fired-On Decal transfer paper.

The following picture shows tumblers bisque fired to cone 05, glaze firing done in a Skutt electric kiln to Cone 5 at a fast speed. Decal firing was to cone 04. I was surprised the glaze turned matte since my early tests to these temps did not turn matte and held their Shino colors. I realized this application of glaze was quite a bit thicker since I had to brush this on. As you can see it is rather yellowish and the Espresso Bean rim lost much of it's darkness.

I then took a group of them and decided to fast fire them back to Cone 5 and see if I gained my glaze As you can see by the comparison the one on the left looks like a glaze fired to the right temperature again. I assume the lumps and bumps under the glaze is the grog coming to the surface due to the firings.

 I then decided to try just firing the rest of them back to Cone 1 to see what would happen and they look as if they were fired back to Cone 5. I do lose some of the darkness from the decal but this glaze blends well with the sepia colored decal so I'll keep it. I will need to make sure I have some good strong lines in my decals when using this glaze. I lose the fine details firing higher.

Periods of Time

It’s interesting how certain things in life seem to fall into categories or ‘periods of time’ for me. I have a tendency to like such a wide variety of activities when I have to do the same thing over and over it falls into a rut and becomes boring or stressful.

In the years that have passed since taking pottery, and my photography, back up I’ve noticed I prefer to use them as a stress reliever so I do not stay within what I should be throwing or need to be throwing and I just throw what I feel like at the time.

Last year I made the decision to go back to work outside of my pottery fulltime so I would not have to make financial decisions. This would allow me to continue to throw whatever I wanted and not what someone else might want to purchase. It was a very freeing decision for me personally.

So what happened? I committed to several donations and found myself having to throw a number of items and it did not matter if I wanted to throw something else. I only had spare time to throw what I committed to providing.

Huh? Wasn’t that exactly what I did not want to do? Yes but what I learned with the first donation was the sense of completion I have not experienced previously. The improvement in my actual throwing skills was measurable as I came to the end of throwing all those tumblers. Very simple form but it really forced me to pay attention to being consistent and keeping my pulls up consistent.

It was a reminder to “never say never” when it comes to a journey. Just enjoy and learn from where you go.

Summertime Blues

I love it when I open the kiln, work my way to the bottom of the kiln looking anxiously for a special item thrown as a gift. You hope it turns out as you could see it in your head. There are so many points along the way of a pot’s journey into being, so many spots where you can lose the piece. Not timing the drying process, not compressing the bottom while throwing, not allowing it to stabilize after having thrown the foot on in a separate throwing session.

Then you have the bisque firing to make it through with no cracks. The next firing is the glaze firing and you hope you have brushed on the glaze evenly. You hope for everything correct…you can do everything you think correct and you can’t always guarantee it will look exactly as you imagined.

It’s a pleasure when you see exactly what you want. Now to keep my fingers crossed it makes it safely to a 2^nd cousin as a gift for her.

Days of Grace mugs

I'm having so much fun with a new technique for a series of mugs aimed at encouraging women with scriptures and affirmations. While some might speak to men I think of women and our unique challenges we face as I make each mug. I can't wait to get the first kiln load fired and glazed within the next week. I'm so anxious I'm only firing the kiln about 2/3 filled. Here is an example of a group of mugs still drying.

Dogstock Pottery

I'm breathing a sigh of relief. After hours of working to get enough thrown to fill the kiln and working around my other work commitments I worry it won't be a good firing. I was relieved to see some nice items when I peeked at about 760 and even more relieved when I pulled those last shelves up to see almost all pieces were decent. Several turned out very nice and to my expectation.

Dogstock pottery

It's been a super busy springtime. Not sure if I should really call it springtime since the weather has been more like winter. I'm enjoying every minute of below normal temps though. I'd never miss the 100+ temps if they went away. I can't wait to see how some of this fires out in the glaze firing.

One small oops in the last batch of handles. So do you market it as a second or as a left-handed mug ;)

Mugs

A new style of mugs from what I normally make. I liked throwing them but I'm not sure about the handles yet. The curl at the bottom is what I'm not sure of on the handle. I'll see what it looks like when I glaze it.

More Decals

My favorite. I just wanted to share. I see all kinds of places I can use this type of decal in my claywork.

I used Ceramic Decal Printing. I'll be using them again.

When The Green Glob-lins Strike

I was so looking forward to a new batch of green glazed pottery. I love this glaze but you really have to be careful with not too hot and not too thick. Unfortunately I did both. I can't bring myself to hammer them since I really like the rest of the pot, just not the foot.

Maybe I need to start a Penguin Pot series. These look just like the roll of fat at the bottoms of a penguin when they are holding an egg.

I am finally getting to focus on working on my pottery again after too much time on the tech side of things. I have my website pretty much complete, my photography site complete and my Etsy store up to date now.

So here are a few of my latest from the kiln.

Check back to see what is new or visit my website for more about me.