liambesaw

Ok, ended up only throwing 2 keepers last night, but I got my gauge set and will throw some more tonight. I can only do 3 a night for now because 3 of my bigger bats up and walked off somewhere. Oh well! I have a 50lb bag of plaster #1 and some pie tins, I should just start making some. Anyway, another video if anyone is interested in my process.

We've got 2 huskies, a 3 year old white one (Kita), she's 65lbs, and a 10 month old cream one (Kodi) and he's 45lbs so far. We also have a 12 year old daschund (Scotch) and a 15 year old tuxedo cat (meowzer)!

That sounds interesting!! And my wife has changed my plans for the week. We are putting together our business plan and she wants me to work on designing and throwing some dog and cat dishes. Our animals have always been central in our life, and so has our mixed heritage so we thought these would be central themes in a family business. So DOG BOWLS!!! WOO! Now I have to go find my sketchbook

Did a glaze firing last night, hope to open tonight when I get home. Kiln was still at 900f when I left for work. I've got 35 mugs in there and a shelf of spoon rests. Trying out a new glaze, coffee nuka. Went to mix some other glazes this weekend and lo and behold! No silica. Grrr, I thought I had half of a 50lb bag left when I saw the bin almost empty. Oh well! That just means I get to make another trip to Seattle pottery supply! This week I'm going to continue to try repeat bowls. That's all that's on the docket. I might do another glaze firing midweek if I can, but not a deal breaker

Let's race! I'll give you a 2 hour head start!

"Don't mind me, just practicing my juggling with all of your final projects over here!"

My hammer is a big maple tree, the pile is getting good.

Are you saying 10000 hours before someone will want to buy your work? That seems excessive!

I'll let you know when I get there. Like pres, I think hours is probably a better measure than years. I can throw a nice even mug the same way pretty much every time, and I've got 10 months of "recent" wheel throwing under my belt now. But I have a wheel at home and I am throwing for about 3 hours a night, 5 days a week. Weekends are mostly glazing and firing so I'm only at the wheel maybe 4 hours. So that's around 19 hours a week, for 44 weeks, 836 hours total so far and I'm just now feeling confident I can sell my mugs and bowls.

Nice about these little bats is no cutting (unless I need to free up some bats early), the mugs pop off at leather soft and I thumb trim them. The bad thing about a system like this is that you need to learn to center on a non-level surface because after some heavy use they don't sit down perfectly in the slot anymore. Hah! I don't have a problem wiring off the wheel, but with my limited room it can be hard to swing my body to side and place the mugs on the shelves using both arms.

Well I think we all would rather hear what form of education has helped you the most in pottery, but you asked for it!

I'm making YouTube videos now too! I thought to myself "what is the internet missing?" And guess what, there wasn't a single video of me in my pajamas making mugs, now there is! Still trying to figure out the whole YouTube thing but I'll get there!

I got a foundation in ceramics back before YouTube, but had a pretty long hiatus between college and getting my own gear. Now I spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos on technique and read helpful books like a potters workbook by Clary illian, or functional pottery by Robin Hopper. I also read back issues of PMI and CM. I think it's just all around absorb as much as I can. Of course these forums here are really nice as well. I have been to a single demo, and it was nice but I was getting annoyed by all of the weird questions that people were asking while the presenter was trying to demo, it felt like they really got in the way. I enjoy doing stuff by figuring it out so I think I'll stay away from the arts center for now!

Welp, had to go get clay again, was down to my last box. This time I decided to go ahead and bring a half ton home, which is all I trusted myself and my Tahoe to drive safely in crazy downpour. 500lbs of Klamath yellow and 500 lbs of vashon red. I really like the yellow as a fast, soft clay and the red as a stiffer smoother clay. Also picked up two new kiln shelves for the kiln I got in December. The ones it came with were both cracked and covered in lowfire glaze. Now I can get 3 shelves of mugs in my kiln at once which will be very nice. Speaking of kilns, I'm doing a full bisque right now! So far I've been able to fill my kiln every week with a bisque, I'm pretty happy with that! This week on my workbench is more spoonrests and mugs. I spent this last week doing just a bunch of spoonrests.

Haha this year if the farmers markets yield a bounty!

I know most people here have a dedicated area for their pottery, and I feel like eventually I'll move towards that. When that time comes there is a list of equipment I'd love to get for specific reasons and a slab roller is one of them. I'd love to make slab plates and feel like a slab roller would make that a lot faster. I want an extruder for handles, test tiles and extruded kiln stuffers (soap dishes, toothbrush holders, business card holders, etc). But in the end I need to be realistic about the space I have, so no. The space a slab roller would take up would mean displacing my entire rack of glaze chemicals, which also happens to be the rack with my sleeping bags, tent and portapotty.

I have a pedal, I just have to keep my foot on it to maintain speed. It's an AC motor so can't do a whole lot. There are some bolts I can crank on to stiffen it up a bit, they're just a pain to get to.

I want to get a wheel that doesn't do that, would be so nice for throwing bigger forms. So I could stand and pull. Maybe this year if I am able to sell some mugs and bowls and whatnot.

Extruded soap dishes

Can I see what those look like? For me, I've got a bunch of mugs to trim and handle, and another bunch of mugs to throw. I have been making sake sets for my relatives in Japan, hopefully going back this year

Wow they all look so good!

Well I'm all out of space again, so more firings this weekend! Have a bisque load ready and then I'll have to do a few glaze firings. If I keep it up at this rate I'll have enough to do a farmers market or whatnot in no time

Isn't that great though? Throw a beautiful form and then slap it around a bit to make it interesting. I've recently gotten into paddling my forms on the wheel. Takes some getting used to but it's a lot of fun! I'm amazed at how hard I can whack a nice tall cylinder and still be able to shape it a bit afterward! As far as going electric, I have wanted an electric kiln for a very long time. Gas firing looks very nice and being able to reduce glazes and body is nice too, but it is expensive for me and requires my full attention for an entire day. It's tiring and I've got a 5 and 7 year old running around, so I am just glad I have one less thing to worry about.

Very nice, almost bone-like. Was the pinholing from high loi? When I put my glazes into insight I know that the loi figures are a rough guess, but I try to keep mine low by subbing out whiting and fiddling.