It was a busy Spring, as clay started to thaw out around mid April. I had already received an order from Savannah Bee in Georgia, and needed to finish orders for chalices and patens. Much of my time was spent in the shop trying to get orders out.
Decorating the chalice forms has been interesting, as I am now almost always stamping them with texture before shaping the bowls, thrown of the hump. This allows some variation in the textures as the form expands so do the textures. I am still throwing the stem and the bowls separately, and often will use a potato peeler to facet edges of the stems in places. I also find the the bulge in the stem toward the top makes it much easier to hold.
The use of a trimming chuck as I have shown earlier is still by far the easiest tool to trim these tall stems without leaving a lot of marks on the form.
This year I had a request for a set of chalices and a long bread paten for french loaves. I ended up doing a slab form with a thrown top ring. The top ring was thrown on a bat without a bottom, and then added a large slab and trimmed to the oval shape of the ring. Decoration was done with the same wooden stamp as used on the chalices.
The honey jar and mug order for Savannah Bee was completed and delivered in late June, and the pieces were very welcome, as they had sold out of the pieces delivered in October.
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| Taken at the Savannah Bee storeroom, Savannah, GA |
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| Rest of order during count. No breakage during transport |
With all of the orders filled, it was time to complete some on my Honey Do list. My wife had been using some of my old larger jars for flower arrangements. However some of the jars were not quite right to hold large flower arrangements and she asked me to make her some floor vases.
On the left is one of these. There was an interesting lesson learned, that I will have to remember in the future. I have been using a white base glaze over the entire form on my pots. This was because when working with the Hazelnut Brown from Standard Ceramics I was not satisfied with the color of the glazes on the bare clay. The dipping of the entire form in the base white liner allowed me a rich variation in color and brightness that did not occur over the bare clay with the sprayed on glazes. I continued to use the same technique on the 630 white clay, but over time was frustrated as the Cream Rust glaze would appear bleached out. The pot on the left was glazed inside and out with the white liner glaze, but only to the shoulder line, leaving the bottom area unglazed before spray glazing.
Compared to the vases
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| Floor vase dipped in White glaze inside and out |
below where there is very little brown showing. My overglaze sprays include a Variegated Blue, and Rutile Green along with the Cream Rust.
I am not disappointed in the way the glazes turned out for these last two, as it is a matter of taste. However, a good lesson to remember.
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Table vase with base white inside and out
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It was a busy Spring, as clay started to thaw out around mid April. I had already received an order from Savannah Bee in Georgia, and needed to finish orders for chalices and patens. Much of my time was spent in the shop trying to get orders out.
Decorating the chalice forms has been interesting, as I am now almost always stamping them with texture before shaping the bowls, thrown of the hump. This allows some variation in the textures as the form expands so do the textures. I am still throwing the stem and the bowls separately, and often will use a potato peeler to facet edges of the stems in places. I also find the the bulge in the stem toward the top makes it much easier to hold.
With all of the orders filled, it was time to complete some on my Honey Do list. My wife had been using some of my old larger jars for flower arrangements. However some of the jars were not quite right to hold large flower arrangements and she asked me to make her some floor vases. 
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