Coil Sculpture

 

We just finished a two part assignment using coils. We had to make a coil pot that was at least 9" tall and a coil sculpture (with visible coils). This was pretty fun to make. At various points I had pieces of foam stuck in between coils trying to get them to dry in place and not have gravity pull many of them down. This piece is several inches tall.

The latest handbuilding project got fired and I LOVE IT. We had to make four slab built cups, a tray and (assigned to me:) a pitcher. These tripod cups are so fun to make. The pitcher is *my first one* and I was worried it wouldn't pour well...but it does! 

I love experimenting with the glazes. This is a combination of a shino, rust (the metallic showing in some spots), celadon (on the interior) and a matte clear (spashed for some design). Swoon.

Seeing things first come out of the glaze firing is usually a disappointment, but this is one of the first times I was really happy with the results. I had done some tests before this firing, but still went on a limb on some of the ideas. Here's some of work before it went through the first firing:

Things are super busy this month and will continue to be until late November. I may ending up crashing during Thanksgiving week. I'm looking forward to a relaxing Thanksgiving week and then lots of family and friend reunions in December. I can't wait for Charlie and Mari to see each other again and  and for Mari to meet my best friends' kids too. 

First handbuilding class project

Our first assignments in my clay handbuilding class were pinch pots. After we made several small pinch pots, we are assigned a pinch pot sculpture (attach two together, etc). I decided to make a sea rock and probably spent far too long making it, but I love it!

Here's the evolution of the piece:

I wasn't expecting the colors to become duller in the end, but I think it's because of how much iron is in the clay body.

 

High Fire Ceramics

Y'all I'm so excited to be able to fire some high fire ceramics! I've only had things fired to cone 5 on an electric kiln, but these are being fired in *actual flames* in a gas kiln. The glazes do much cooler things at this higher temperature.

Several years ago I took some ceramic courses and became 100% obsessed (bought a wheel, a kiln, etc). Now that Mari is a little bigger I decided I might have time to take another course again at the university. There just isn't anything like the motivation and inspiration that comes with an actual class. I'm taking a handbuilding class this semester. This vase was made on the wheel as something extra outside of the class.

This is a shino glaze fired in a gas kiln to cone 10.

I'll share my handbuilding project soon. It's the kiln right now.

Ceramic Plate Wall

This past year we wallpapered our dining room wall and I finally hung a bunch of plates I made (after saying for like three years that I wanted to do that..whoops!)

Some of these are really old and a couple were made more recently. I hope to add a couple of high fire plates soon to the collection.

Mari even helped to decorate one of them:

New Painting & Updated Built-in Shelves

A year ago I decided I wanted to build a canvas and paint something in our living room to replace our gallery wall. 

So I built the frame...

and stretched the canvas and painted it. But I didn't like it. Then I tucked it away for a year.....Until last week when I decided to try again. So I reprimed it and painted it. 

And I even got a little help from the little one:

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. We had decided to go with one large piece for the living room wall instead of a gallery wall, so it wouldn’t visually compete with the built-in shelving. And special shout-out to Uncle Gary who built me a frame for the Canvas! Because the canvas I built wasn’t perfectly square, he had to do a lot of extra work to make it work.

Here's our updated shelving that we repainted last summer:

Here's a before photo (yep, that's Ms. Rachel on TV...this is the only photo I could find)

Earrings

I've made some ceramic earrings over the past few years and these are a few of my favorites. The gold flecks in the glaze on this big one turned out especially fun. I try not to spend too much time on any single earring since I lose so many of them in the greenware stage. Lots of them crack when I’m making the holes and end up getting tossed. I loaded a kiln yesterday and broke one of the necklace pieces in transit 😫 (that I did spend some time on!).

This glaze is called "june bug". The photo doesn't do it justice, but it's a glossy, dark green metallic glaze. 

More earring posts coming soon.

Sprinkle Cookies

 

Like any other normal toddler, Mari is obsessed with sprinkles. We finally made sprinkle cookies together and she loved them.

I'm not a big sugar cookie fan, but I really liked these. Recipe adapted from here. (They call for sprinkles in the dough AND on top - seemed too much for me. We only put them on top and they were great and not overly sweet.)

Sprinkle Sugar Cookies

• 1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour
• 1 & 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 3/4 cup (150g) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sprinkles (for just on top)
  

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a medium bowl. 
2. In a stand mixer (or separate bowl), beat the butter and granulated sugar together on medium high speed until creamed, ~1 minute. Add the egg and vanilla and beat on high until combined, ~1 minute. 
3. Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix on low (or by hand). Scoop dough and roll into balls (I made them small). Dip tops of cookies into sprinkles. Place on a sheet or large plate and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. (I put them in the freezer for an hour and then the fridge for 20-30 minutes.)
6. Arrange chilled cookie dough balls at least a couple inches apart on baking sheets. Bake for 12-13 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look soft.

Bandana Bibs

How cute is this little nugget?

She's been drooling up a storm lately, so I sewed her some bandana bibs. It's nice to have an excuse to sew some quick things now. 

Introducing Mari Lee

 Wow, my last post was in January 2020. I'm not sure how things could have possibly changed more! We survived the last couple years and came out with a special prize. She's now a little over three months old and we are very happy. She's so sweet and happy.

Meet Mari Lee.

I should have been posting during the pandemic because I made loads of things! Pottery, baked goods, delicious meals and jewelry. We even closed in our garage and turned it into a room. That is probably worth a post.

More to come soon!

2019 Highlights

Happy New Year! I hope to be blogging more regularly here. 2019 was mostly a very good year and had a lot of family and travel highlights.

In March during my spring break, a group of close friends traveled together to Big Bend National Park. It was a magical week of hiking, group meals and goofs.

I won a teaching award in the School of Natural Sciences:

 In May we got to travel with family to the UK and had a wonderful time exploring coastal towns, visiting family, eating (fish & chips! meat pies!) and family runs:

Eric and I had a week to travel together post-family trip to visit a friend in Ghent and spend a few days in Paris:

At the end of June my family rented a beach house together in Florida. It was a really special week of seashell hunting, sand castles, pool time and a record amount of snacks (seriously! sadly don't have photo evidence):

and I continued making ceramics:

Clay Final Project

This past year I decided to take art classes for fun at the university I teach at. I'll admit I was a little naive with how time consuming it would be to be taking college level art classes, but I loved all the classes I took. Last spring I took a handbuilding clay class and a watercolor class. In the fall I took a wheel throwing class. I fell completely in love with clay and spent most of my free time in the studio. Our final project was to create a placesetting for at least four people with a minimum of 12 pieces. This was an incredibly challenging project for students new to throwing. Plates are a challenge to beginners as well as centering larger weights of clay.

I was completely humbled to be a student again. Having to adhere to all the same deadlines as the other students, I found some weeks nearly impossible to meet deadlines when life and work got busy. There were a couple nights I was in the clay studio late at night with a bunch of other students feeling that late night deadline crunch. (I can empathize so much more with my students now!)

More posts soon!

Kombucha

Hi, I'm alive! I disappeared when things got busy. I decided to take classes at the university I teach at (amazing opportunity to take classes for free!) and mistakenly took two classes in the spring semester. I took Clay I, a handbuilding class, and Watercolor I. I had so much fun, but I was in the clay studio all the time. I'll share some things I made soon.

I'm off this summer (YAY!). I spent almost four weeks in the UK at the beginning of the summer. Two & a half were spent as a faculty chaperone on a UK study abroad trip. The last week Eric flew over and we had a vacation in Ireland. Now I'm back working on house projects and such.

One of my first projects when I got back: brewing kombucha. I brewed kombucha once before, but it only turned out alright. I grew my own scobies recently and decided to give kombucha brewing one more shot. Oh my gosh. I'm so glad I did! This batch turned out fabulous. A great sweet/sour balance and I got bubbles! Woo! I added fresh strawberries when I bottled the batch and dropped in a raisin or two in each mason jar. The raisin is supposed to help with the carbonation. I followed the kombucha recipe here .

Homegrown scobies!

Making the starter tea

Now I'm on a cycle of continuous brewing, so we should have kombucha frequently! :-)