Finished Pottery Pieces

I'm so excited!! Our first few pottery projects were ready for us last night. They all turned out so well!!

I will confess I was very surprised how beautiful the glaze turned out. These pieces were a puke-pink color after the first firing and the glaze wasn't too much better. I should have taken pictures and will try to remember for next week as the teacher was beginning the first firing last night.

The mug was the project from our very first class. With that piece I used two different glazes which I dipped both coats. With the little blue bowl I dipped the first layer then sponged on the second glaze. The oak leaf bowl's really cool mottling was from individually sponging on three different glazes. I'm looking forward to our next batch of glazing. I have a couple of wavy bowls along with the moon/star votive and snowman (pictures posted in an earlier blog).

Last night I worked on a basketweave bowl. It was very simple to begin...just cut out lots of strips of pottery and drape row of 4-5 strips over a bowl mold. Then came a slightly advanced move...weaving another 4-5 strips through the first set of strips. Everything looked nice and I was feeling good. Then came the difficult part...weaving the sides of the bowl. I was a little brain dead and unlucky. I had a 50-50 chance of doing the weave right or wrong. Guess which 50% I got? Yep! The wrong way! So I had to re-weave my sides, every single weave, all the way around. Ugh! So I get that done and now is the most difficult part...creating a two-coil twist for the top of the bowl. All this is down with the bowl upside down on the mold. Twists and coils are not my forte, lemme tell ya! They take patience with an extra helping of patience. Now I'm patient in many areas of my life, but I've discovered I'm not a patient potter! I did get the coil on after lots of cussing (in my head, not aloud) and left the piece covered in plastic so I could finish it up next week. I started wedging the clay around 6:30 and finished that @#$% coil at 9:00 sharp. I certainly hope this bowl doesn't end up in the Discard Pile, but.... we'll see!

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N