Works-in-Clay

Updating

2010-08-06T18:55:00.002-05:00

I promise to update with photos of all my finished pieces as soon as I get my living situation sorted! Everything's been up in the air for a few months and it could be a little while longer. I've glazed everything I've pictured here lately and some of it looks pretty good. (Some not so good.)

Thanks for paying attention.

Very slowly finishing this pot...

2010-04-13T21:57:00.002-05:00

I've had this waiting in my basement for a few months. Think I'm finally ready to finish it. Just deciding on final details.

The whitish stuff you see on the pot is grainy salty build up from weeks of spraying water on it to keep it from drying out. I've polished it with fine sandpaper so it's fairly smooth now.

Little monsters

2010-04-13T21:54:00.005-05:00

Forgot my camera so here are some cell phone pictures of some new little things I'm making:

My brother says they look kind of like viruses.

I plan on making more of these. I'll try to remember to take my camera and take pictures step by step. These spheres are created by making two pinch pot bowls and sticking them together by scoring and slip and a coil to bind them together. I let them get leather hard so they'll hold their shape while I handle them and then add the spikes and protrusions. I've poked a tiny hole in the bottom of each of these to allow air to escape when they're fired. If I didn't, they'd explode because the superheated air expands and has to get out somehow!

You can see I've left the surface a little rough, especially on the smaller ones. I thought the uneven texture added character but maybe it's just sloppy. I'm really just trying to work things out with these and in future have a more refined product. I plan to just stain some of these and experiment with glaze on others and then see what works best.

Just trying to do something different that's fun so it doesn't feel like work going into the studio. There's really no point to these things other than just to experiment and have fun with creativity and not try to create something important.

The Wide Stripes

2010-03-26T14:36:00.007-05:00

Remember this piece? I finally had it fired and glazed.

I quite like the stripe effect from this angle:

The glaze is a very dark brown that appears black. I used wax on the bisqued piece to block off the sections with no glaze. (First marking the lines with a pencil and filling in with a brush and liquid wax goo.) I wanted to see what it would look like to contrast bare clay with the blackish glaze. I like how the specks in the clay are the same color as the glaze. It's coordinated! Not too bad, eh? Especially considering I don't glaze often so my glazing skills are somewhat mediocre. I'm just pleased with the clean lines where the glaze stops.

"Range of Vision"

2010-03-05T11:05:00.004-06:00

During the month of March, you can see my work in a show called "Range of Vision," featuring artwork by me, my sister Sarah, and my mom, Holly, at A Piece of Work, Inc., in Spirit Lake, Iowa.

The image I posted here was part of the press release I received. The painting is my mom's and the photograph is my sister's.

A Piece of Work is located at 1619 Hill Ave., Spirit Lake, Iowa. Hours are 10:00am – 5:00pm Tuesday-Saturday. The reception will be held Friday, March 12th from 5:30-7:00pm. I will not be there as I live on Oklahoma, but you all should go!

Acknowledgements

2010-02-08T22:03:00.002-06:00

As I'm completing my application for admission to graduate school, I keep thinking about the people who've been important to my success as a ceramist. I found myself wishing there was a page in the app where I could list thanks, kind of like an acceptance speech at an awards show.

Well, here's my list:

Sue Coleman (instructor and gallery coordinator at Cornell) who advised me in the execution of my senior thesis gallery show and helped me write my artist statement.

Sarah Henson, Matt and Maegen Heindel (fellow students and friends at Cornell) who helped me title my show and flesh out the connection between "landscapes" and my sculptural vessels.

Mark McWhorter (Indian Hills ceramics instructor)--taught me everything I know! My technique is one he used and my early pieces are directly inspired by his.

Tony Plaut (Cornell prof) was not my assigned adviser, but was an adviser to me. He challenged me and gave me useful criticism and practical advice about grad school.

Mary Young (my grandmother), an artist. She was also inspired by erosion and I was inspired by her.

Chad Elliott (painter, sculptor, musician, local celebrity) thought I was good and invited me to make stuff, which was the only stuff I made that year. Thanks to him, I can call myself an active artist. Also, he was an undergrad student at the school I'm trying to go to for grad school. He is part of my connection to that place.

Holly Kellogg (my mom). My number one supporter and encourager. Also PR person because I've gotten into shows and sales because of her. Literally could not be completing this application without her. She's done all the legwork. Digging through files for dates, taking my stuff to the photographer, taking measurements, etc. (Not because I am lazy necessarily, but because all my stuff is in Iowa and I am in Oklahoma.) Anyway, THANKS MOM!

Owl Assortment

2010-02-06T22:55:00.004-06:00

I'm not posting anything that I haven't posted here or on flickr before, but this photo represents the many owls I've made (somewhere between 60 and 80 probably--I should have kept track!). I'm posting this in response to a tweet from Korina!

Photo by

Professionally photographed

2010-02-06T22:34:00.005-06:00

I found a photographer I'm happy with to photograph my ceramics. This is the first coil pot I ever made:

Thanks to Bob at FotoPros Portrait Studio in Spencer, Iowa.

Holiday Art Sale

2009-12-10T13:48:00.002-06:00

Some of my work can be purchased at the WaterWorks Art Center 2009 Holiday Fina Art Show & Sale at 1710 West Charles Page Blvd., Tulsa. The show runs through December 19. The Art Center is open Monday through Saturday. Hours 9 to 9 Mon-Thurs, 9-5 Fri, 10-6 Sat.

That thing I'm working on

2009-11-11T21:24:00.002-06:00

"...You're not a Lord of the Rings fan are you?"

Don't judge me!

I'm a little concerned that the star field around the neck is a little "patriotic." It's not supposed to be. Not that I'm not patriotic. That's just not the message here. The message is obviously "this is a pot with the tree of Gondor on it." Just kidding. I have no idea what's going on. The only parts I know I'm keeping are the trees. Still working this one out.

What is it? Uh.. a vase?

2009-11-11T21:17:00.003-06:00

I tried making a smooth coil thing to make it less about being a coil pot. You can still see the coils, though. Kind of like ribs. When I started, I thought about applying a texture at the end, but I'm not so sure. If I don't, I have to glaze it, and I'm a little scared of glaze.

More tiles with kids

2009-11-11T21:09:00.004-06:00

I had my second group of kids in my art class, so we did clay tiles again.

Here's mine:

Clearly I put a lot of thought into it.

Pip jug

2009-10-18T01:20:00.001-05:00

Just realized I never posted a finished photo of this:

Preview

2009-10-18T01:00:00.002-05:00

This is a terrible cell phone picture of something I'm working on. The pot has been built, but I'm still working on the decorative aspects of it. The above image is part of what I've done so far. Here's what the piece looks like:

Front view, and back view from an angle. In these pics the top isn't finished. Coils were just added but not smoothed.

And if it looks like a butt to you, well, I can't really say it isn't a butt. The base shape is based on an old pot I did my first year called "The Butt Pot." Coil building just really lends itself to organic forms!

I have more to say about a change I've made in my work recently, but it's 1 a.m. and I don't think now is the time to get into it. I'm going on vacation for a week, but when I get back, I'll finish this and another coil pot I've got going on, and write a bit about what I'm trying to do now.

LOL!

2009-10-18T00:46:00.005-05:00

(click to enlarge!)

Tile has been sent and recieved. Apelad posted some pics on his flickr.

The tile was finished with red iron oxide stain. The specks you see are particles in the clay body. Probably iron or something.

Owls

2009-09-30T22:11:00.002-05:00

I had some clay that was a bit dried out--not very plastic. Not good enough for most things, but good enough to make a couple little owls:

Four inches tall I think.

Five inches? I am bad at guessing these things. Tall and skinny.

Boston Avenue Holy Wow Creative Arts Class

2009-09-30T21:57:00.003-05:00

Because I am "artistic" I was asked to teach a one-hour art class on Wednesday nights for mid- and high schoolers at my church (Boston Avenue United Methodist). Last week, we did clay tiles. I prepared wet 6" by 6" tiles for the kids to carve into or make imprints or whatever they liked.

I picked up a bunch of leaves because I thought it would be fun to make leaf imprints. Here was my example:

I'm going to finish these with red iron oxide stain, so the stain will really highlight the leaf texture.

The kids':

Aren't these cute?

Lamoni, IA rest stop tiles

2009-09-30T21:25:00.002-05:00

On the way back to OK from Ottumwa, I stopped at the rest stop/Iowa welcome center near Lamoni and found these cool handmade terra cotta tiles on the building and around the grounds. I wonder who made them.

I really like how they did the lettering.

Indian Hills: Instructors and Students

2009-09-30T21:12:00.002-05:00

A few pics from the opening on September 14th.

Piece by Jake Allee and myself.

Juston Rominger and his wall.

Me and some of mine (on top).

Opening night crowd.

Top shelf: works by Kendra Bogert. Bottom: by instructor Lisa Fritz.

Preparing for the show

2009-09-14T10:08:00.002-05:00

Friday afternoon, my friend Juston Rominger finished building his installation of, what, we'll say 1,000 cups. Kendra Bogert and I also helped put up labels. Here are a few pictures of the show that opens today:

Juston

A couple of my pieces.

Kendra adjusting her beautiful work.

Ottumwa Courier article: A ceramics showcase

2009-09-14T10:01:00.003-05:00

The Ottumwa Courier printed an article today about the show Indian Hills Ceramics: Instructors and Students, which I am in. It's not a particularly good article, and in the photo caption they called Juston Rominger "Jason". But it's nice to have coverage. I hope there's a good turnout at the reception tonight.

Read the article.

The show opens today and runs through November 5th at the Indian Hills Community College Art Gallery in Ottumwa, Iowa. The Art Gallery is at the back of the library and is open during library hours. Opening reception tonight at 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

2009-08-30T06:48:00.003-05:00

I forgot to mention in the previous post that water in the clay will also make it explode. Same reason--it heats up and wants to escape. Aaaand having an even thickness like I was talking about helps the clay DRY evenly.

I may not be updating on this blog for a few weeks because at about 2:30 this morning I decided I'm going on a little trip! I'll be in Iowa for a few weeks. So actually I may update because part of the reason I'm going to Iowa is to participate in a faculty/alumni ceramics show at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa where I went to school.

YEAH!

Busted!

2009-08-29T14:10:00.005-05:00

Alright, so I'm not like a top class ceramist or anything. My craftsmanship is sometimes sub-par. (Well, in my opinion. My standards are higher than my abilities.) I don't worry about it all the time. I think I just don't have enough experience yet to have all that neatness business down and I'm more focused on the creative parts of the work. Anyway, I brought that Laugh-Out-Loud Cats tile home with me so I could baby it while it dries. I was looking at it earlier and it occurred to me that parts of it are 3/4" thick. As if I didn't have enough things falling apart around me, I suddenly realized that this piece could blow!

The thickness itself isn't a problem, but when you've got a thick wad of clay, there's more of a risk for air bubbles in the clay. When you fire clay (this one's going up to somewhere around 2000 degrees before it's done), if there's any air inside it, it will expand and it will escape--even if that means blowing up the piece. (This is why in hollow pieces you will always find at least a little pinhole to let the air out.)

If I had just rolled out this clay to 3/4" inches, it probably would have air bubbles, but this was rolled out to 1/2", most of it cut out, and the thicker parts carefully built up, so it should be alright (I'm telling myself). I mean, I pretty much know what I'm doing. But usually, even when I'm careful like this, I do carve out the thick parts from the back:

Tile made from slab rolled out to prolly 1/4", built up.

Thick parts carved out. So it's really about the same thickness everywhere, for the most part. This one also is carved in such a way you can hang it from a nail.

I did not do this with the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats tile because I was so scared to pick it up too much and mess with it. It's the most complicated bit of sculpting I've ever done*. This is the back of the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats tile:

The white stuff is just dust. The bumps are from pressing a tool in to make the impressions of windows in the buildings. The center is kinda rubbed smooth from working it so much on the other side. It's kind of an ugly little thing, ain't it?

By the way, it will have a finish pretty similar to the elephant tile depicted.

*Besides something like this:

Drying tiles

2009-08-25T20:54:00.004-05:00

Tiles will want to warp when they dry.

I've got a little curl here, you can see. (In this case I think it's partly because it's been on a slightly warped wooden board.) It's not significant. At this point it's unlikely I can reverse it, but I can try to prevent any further curling.

This happens because the top, which is exposed to air, dries faster than the bottom. And clay shrinks as it dries. At Indian Hills, we'd dry our tiles on an open grid rack (which was actually the grid off one of those square box fans). At WaterWorks, we've got plaster boards, which will suck moisture out.

Here I've got the tile on a plaster board with wads of clay weighing the corners down. I know it looks silly, but I've done it many times before and my tiles are mostly flat with at most a tiny wobble.

I'm a little concerned this one's going to end up a little wobblier than my others.

Glazing Pip, etc.

2009-08-25T19:41:00.005-05:00

Dipped bottom in denim blue glaze. (There wasn't enough of the green I wanted, so I opted for the blue I knew would work.) Then sponged off the glaze that pooled on the waxed parts (the bottom and on the Pip deco).

Time to dunk the top in white.

There will be a little overlap. The colors in this case will mix to make a light blue.

The result in profile:

The inspiration for my glazing scheme comes from this wheel-thrown mug by Whitefish Pottery, Whitefish, Montana.

Laught-Out-Loud Cats #1189

2009-08-13T17:51:00.003-05:00

It's done! Pretty much. I starting putting in Apelad's signature, but then realized I couldn't see the end of it on my reference image, so I'll have to add the "RD" later (of A. Koford). And maybe clean up some bits. Pip's face doesn't match the proportions of the original (mine is shorter and wider) but it's CUUUUUTE and that was really the hardest part of the whole thing and I think that's just the way it's going to be!

I am so excited to have done this!

Red iron oxide, glaze

2009-08-13T17:29:00.006-05:00

This pot is...kind of hideous. (It's called "Strange Slope".) Red iron oxide (powder mixed in water) is brushed on, then the excess sponged off. There is no glaze on this piece.

I like how it kind of looks like blood in the sink.

Glaze is different than a stain because it has a more complex recipe and a glass-forming agent and so on, while the stain in this case is just one ingredient (iron oxide might be used as a colorant in some glaze recipes).

To glaze this piece, I started by pouring glaze inside (with the help of a funnel). You can see I overfilled it and it spilled on the counter. Glaze is easily wiped off with a wet sponge. You can see there's a chunk in the glaze that I might rub off when it dries (it just dries to a powder) or leave it there because it won't hurt anything. Since I had to get the outside wet because of the spill, I didn't want to glaze the outside yet because I want the clay to be fairly dry. Then it can suck up the water in the glaze, causing it to stick.

I ran out of time but I'll finish it tomorrow. The inside is glossy white and the outside will be a forest or olive green. To glaze the outside, I'll dip the piece rather than pour. Actually I'll dip the bottom portion in green, and the top portion in the white, so it will look similar to the bottle I posted previously.

It's getting somewhere!

2009-08-12T18:48:00.001-05:00

It's almost done! Pip needs work, but most of the rest of it is in place. Just needs cleaning up and stuff. Wheeeeee!

Waxing Pip

2009-08-12T18:42:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I applied red iron oxide to the Pip hobo jug. Today I applied wax:

Painting on wax resist with a brush. CAREFULLY! If you make a mistake, the only way to get it off is to bisque it again (to burn it off).

All done!

Also applied wax to the bottom (the "foot") to make it easier to clean glaze off the bottom. I think it comes off easily enough with a wet sponge anyway, but it's standard practice at Waterworks, and it's kind of fun to paint it on, so I do it anyway.

Updates...

2009-08-11T18:04:00.006-05:00

Step one of glazing the Pip hobo jug: Apply red iron oxide. Iron oxide (rust) powder mixed with water and brushed on.

Then sponge off the excess. This brings out detail and texture.

(The next steps will be brushing on wax resist over the iron oxide to keep glaze off, then actually applying the glaze.)

Bad news regarding this coil piece. I let it dry too fast. Clay shrinks as it dries and the inside dries slower than the outside, so drying pieces like this must be carefully controlled (only letting it sit out to dry one or two hours at a time, using a blow dryer or propane torch to help the inside dry out a little faster). But I got overconfident and left it uncovered when I shouldn't have. This is what happens:

I can't fix it. I've tried fixing others and it hasn't worked very well, and the attempt would be too obvious anyway. I'll just have to let it be. The crack might get even bigger when fired. I'm going to fire it anyway. I just won't be able to show or sell this one.

Laugh-Out-Loud Cats tile:

I cleaned up the edge on the skyline, started working on the cats. Some parts are not attached and will be replaced later. Some is just sketched in and will be redone later.

I find myself unable to work on this project for more than one hour (or less) at a time. But it's getting done slowly and steadily. I'm just really good at wasting time and working on parts I know I'm going to just redo anyway. I don't really know why I'm stalling. But it won't be much longer now. I'll try to have it done by the end of the week.

Out of the kiln!

2009-08-08T18:18:00.004-05:00

I didn't get a chance to actually work today because I went along to Bartlesville to see Price Tower (Frank Lloyd Wright design) and the new exhibit in the Arts Center titled UK/OK: Exploring Traditions in Contemporary Design. It was definitely worthwhile. I'd actually never been to a Frank Lloyd Wright building before.

On the way back I did pick up two pieces fresh out of the kiln! I'm fairly pleased with how well they turned out.

Slab-built jug for Geoffrey:

Coil-built bottle with red iron oxide stain:

Caves

2009-08-07T19:06:00.006-05:00

Rock formations have already been an important inspiration for my work for several years now.

See, building my sculptural work is really like building a playground for my mind. I always see it as if I'm a little person, walking around down there in those spaces (as if I were walking through a canyon or something). For a few pieces I did in college I was actually trying to mimic actual land formations:

(Hope that looks like a canyon to you.)

Others are less obvious, but still those are the sort of spaces I had in mind.

This came out of a trip I took long ago with my family to the Southwest. We saw Arches National Park, the Grand Canyon, and so on. It took several years to incubate and come out in actual work.

Then in college I took a trip with the Geology Club to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. I'd never been in a cave before. Man, was that a trip! I knew that I'd found new inspiration, but I still don't really know exactly how it's going to come out in my work. For the last piece I did (seen a few posts ago), I DID have in mind cave interiors (deep shafts and things like that).

It's hard to photograph caves because they're so dark and vast and flash only goes so far, but here are a few shapes I think are really amazing. I mean it's just awesome to think about this rock being carved over years and years by water:

Howe Caverns, New York

Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave (inside Mammoth Cave National Park), Kentucky
(This cave is actually closed to the public. It once housed the remains of Floyd Collins, caving legend, and was open for tours. But now it's only opened to special cave people. My group was incredibly fortunate to be allowed in.)

Howe Caverns, New York

A little progress, not much

2009-08-07T17:41:00.006-05:00

I've been lazy this week. I've got excuses, but they're too lame to report. Every so often I've gone into the studio to rewet the tile, but not to do much more than that.

It's wet now, but next time I see it, it'll be relatively dry again. You can see that all I did was start building up the speech bubble and Pip. I was sick that day and gave up quickly. Still don't know if this is going to be a final product or just a practice.

When I first pictured this project, I imagined a much greater level of neatness and perfection, but what I really get is a lot "sketchier." One artist I usually list as a favorite is Pablo Picasso. The reason is not necessarily that I like his art. Several years ago I visited the Picasso museum in Paris, and one of the things I came away with was that Picasso was very prolific, but not necessarily neat. It was a bit of a relief to me because it made me realize that I could be making good art even if it isn't pristine and perfectly neat. (Not that it gives me an excuse to be sloppy.) I just have to remind myself sometimes that I'm usually the only one who notices flaws or errors in my work and I don't need to panic if something doesn't turn out exactly as I imagined it.

Bean bottle

2009-08-02T15:43:00.004-05:00

Waterworks isn't open on Sundays, so here's a photo of a recent piece:

I simple coil pot with a bean-shaped base. I'm bad at guessing measurements, but I'd say it's about a foot tall.

Zzzzzzzzzz...........

2009-08-01T17:50:00.003-05:00

Today I started work on the tile of this image. I'd already prepped the tile itself yesterday. Today it was leather hard. Maybe a little too leather hard, but good enough.

I had a printout of the comic, layed it over the clay, and used my needle tool to transfer outlines to the clay:

Alright, so, I don't actually have everything totally figured out. I'd planned to carve the background in, as in, the buildings deeper than the sky, and then build the stuff in the foreground up. So the next thing I did was carve out the buildings. Which was unfortunately more of a challenge than I realized it would be, not helped by the fact that the clay was so hard (and unforgiving).

If this is going to work, I'm really going to need it to come out more boxy and less...crappy. I decided to just work on other stuff and try to figure it out later.. So I just started working on the trees. I scored 'em, brushed on slip, and then stuck more clay on and kinda squished it around until it seemed alright.

There are actually two layers of trees because two of them are behind one (on the right half), so the three more prominent ones are built up, and the two behind ones are just carved out of what was there. I did a little work on the hammock as well, but the studio was closing. This is as far as I got:

This may end up as a practice piece rather than final product because right now it's kind of, well, ugly as. I've still got plenty of problems to work out, besides just getting it to look neater. Such as, what am I doing with the foreground?? (I would like to know!)

Today's work

2009-07-31T16:58:00.006-05:00

Today I went in to work on the Pip hobo jug a little more and prep for tomorrow's tile work.

Tile stuff: First I rolled a half-inch-thick slab (Waterworks has two slab rollers!), smoothed the surface with a metal rib to get rid of the canvas texture, and used a template I'd cut out at home that's about 4 3/4" by 7" to cut out the tile (the original comics are 4x6, but the clay will shrink probably about 10% so it will probably be fairly close to original size in the end). Once that was cleaned up, I let it sit out while I was working, and it's sitting in the damp box now and hopefully will be close to leather hard by tomorrow so I can work on it. It may be just a clay rectangle now, but tomorrow, it will look like this! ... Well, actually, I will be happy if I just get the background skyline done. That'll be dug in, and then the trees and the cats will be built up.

That done, I got Pip out to see what could be done about giving him arms. This is what I got:

Pretty cute, no? I'll have to clean it up a bit once it's more dry, but it's pretty much done.

I had some clay that was a little dried out from rolling the slab earlier that I wanted to use up (it'd be too dry for another time), so I cranked out one of these:

A wonky-eyed owl. I started making little coil owls years ago. I must have made about 60 by now. I've got wads at home, sold others. My mom's commissioned me to make her some because she gives them as gifts for graduations with quotes about wisdom.

I got the idea for owls out of a kids project book for clay. Theirs were made out of pinch bowls, but I made mine out of coils and I've got all sorts of feather-ish stamps made for them. Just take a blade to a pencil eraser! You can carve anything you can carve on a tiny, round surface.

Signature Stamp

2009-07-31T16:40:00.004-05:00

I made this initial stamp several years ago.

It's bisqued clay. You can see that there's a chip on the edge, too, from when it rolled onto a concrete floor a couple years ago (shouldn't have made it all round). I've used this on every piece I've made since somewhere between five and six years ago, minus a few because I lose it every now and then. I know most potters won't sign their work until it's done (superstition, or something), but I usually sign mine first because they're too big and delicate to pick them up and stamp the bottom at the end. However, once or twice I've stamped them at the end on the outside toward the bottom. I guess I'm not really consistent at all.

I prefer the stamp over an actual signature in the clay because I think it looks dumb (at least mine does) and also initial stamps are a pottery tradition and I like traditions. All my cool pottery profs have cool initial stamps.

You may note that it says "STK". I know when you have a big initial in the center, that's supposed to be the letter for the last name, but that's just not the way I did it. It doesn't matter anyway because "T" isn't my middle initial. It's just the middle initial I use to sign my art. There is a reason, but it's pretty boring and insignificant. Here it is: my sister and I have a friend who calls her "SB" for Sarah Beth. So I took "ST" because it rhymes with SB, and the T is from Stephanie. Some things (like drawings) I've signed "St. Kellogg" to differentiate from just plain S. Kellogg, which could be either sister. But then it looks like it should be Saint Kellogg, which actually I am fine with. My real middle initial is M. I don't like to use "SMK" because S and M next to each other just makes me think "S&M".

Latest coil piece

2009-07-30T18:46:00.000-05:00

I was thinking of cave interiors. Clearly it would be very difficult to actually recreate a cave, but the shapes (like the shafts and curves) and so on were on my mind. It may not look like much from the outside, I suppose. My head is always inside them (and looking down) when I make them so the outside doesn't always come out as interesting as the inside.

G. W. L.

2009-07-30T17:51:00.000-05:00

Geoffrey asked me to make him something. Actually, I think he asked, "When are you going to make me something?" That was during the hand building class I took at Waterworks, and this is what I made. It looks funny now because glaze has been applied but it hasn't been fired. It should be white on top (and inside) and denim blue on the bottom.

The image is Geoffrey (drawn from looking at both a real photo of him and his comic version of himself), his initials G.W.L., and some trees in the left (he does work in the woods!).

There is no glaze on the decoration. Instead, I applied red iron oxide (brushed on, excess wiped off) to bring out the design and texture. It also looks really nasty right now because there are a couple layers of wax resist over it (to help keep glaze off when dunked in the glaze bucket).

I want to be leaf.

2009-07-30T17:05:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be making a ceramic tile version of this comic for Apelad but I wasn't ready to jump into it right away. I decided to make a "hobo jug" to get started.

I learned to make this kind of bottle in a hand building class at Waterworks Art Studio here in Tulsa. It's slab constructed and is really easy and fast (considering I can do it in an afternoon rather than a period of days like my coil stuff).

This is the basic bottle with handle added (which I actually did last):

I'd drawn the leaf earlier to use as a template:

I suppose I could have cut it out and traced around it, but I didn't think of it. I did what I sometimes do when I want to transfer a design to a tile--lay the paper on top of the clay and poke holes with my needle tool. And then I can cut along the line marked by the dots.

I did a little work on the leaf, and then scored both the back of the leaf and the area I applied it to on the bottle, brushing on slip as a kind of glue.

Once the leaf was on, I started making Pip's face. Well, making a tiny cat face out of clay is not one of the easiest things to do. The hardest part was getting the eyes and mouth in place. My hand was shaking towards the end, too, so I "erased" what I'd done to finish later.

I'll get it right eventually:

I think when it's all over, Pip will also have arms as if hanging onto a ledge (or looking out a window) so he's not so much just a disembodied head. Like I said, this is just a warm up.

*Edit: I couldn't find it earlier..I want to be leaf.