My flowers

My son and his wife came up to visit this last weekend with their whirlwind toddler.  The only time little one sits still is if someone will read with him. This is my daughter-in-law reading to a cooling down baby.   He likes to turn the pages, and will contribute missing words in a pause, if he's read the book enough times.  His new favorite is the Tails book my daughter gave him.  It was her sons' book when they were little.  He likes the last page that shows the huge whale's tail the best. 

Going to the studio today to do, guess what..... glaze tiles!!!!

These are the flowers that make up the inside border for the oribe.  I used an orange Amoco underglaze with a clear zinc free glaze over it, then dipped the edges in the oribe.   It's interesting how the flash in the glaze firing darkened the edges.  I think it's a good look for the tile.  What do you think? 

Technique to create drama

Occasionally I want to convey a sense of high drama in a painting. 

One of the ways to do that is to backlight the subject.  Indicating a light source with light and shadow shows time of day, of course, and additionally it will also affect the mood of the entire work.

Backlighting can really make an object pop.  These two paintings are in different mediums.  The tulips are done in acrylic, and the amaryllis is a watercolor, but the use of backlighting in each adds to the drama of the overall look. 

The new school year

Hi all.

I keep trying to upload this picture of Steve, my tile buddy, making tile on the tile press, but it won't let me. 

Anywho.  The school year has started.  In class on Saturdays, and lab on Mon, Wed, and Fri.  Mostly glazing now.  Who am I kidding?  All glazing now.  And unloading the kilns, and boxing tile. 

Found yesterday when I laid out the tiles for my turtle table that I am missing 7 tiles.  Of course, with the amount I have been making, I'm surprised that I miscalculated by so little.

So I think I'll make turtle tiles today.

I yearn for the happy days, throwing bowls on the wheel. 

Glaze change

In an earlier post, I'd mentioned that I was concerned about the shade of green of the background tiles for one of my benches.  It turned out I needed a blue green, not a gray, sage green. 

Well, campers, I'm happy to report that in the latest glaze firing, my blue green, aka Oribe, turned out perfectly.  Now I only have two hundred more to glaze.  But the test was a success!!! Yay, me! 

Excuse me, Yay, Oribe!

The Group

Here's a picture of the (in)famous tile group.  From left to right, there's me, of course, Sue, Al in the center, Ted and Steve.  A friend of mine is a professional photographer, and we've hired him to do some candid photos of the work in progress, so we can have documentation of our monumental feat as we progress.  And believe, me, kids, this is probably the biggest job we've ever done.  We get a little overwhelmed, sometimes, when we think about the scope.  So we try not to do that.  We just go to the studio and work.  We can see the progress, so that is a huge plus to keep us going, and working.  More pictures tomorrow.

Trippin'

We went to the Natural Bridge while we were up at the cabin.  We hadn't been in about 8 years, maybe more.  The forest ranger was kind enough to take a picture of Tom and I with the friends we went with.  It was a steep trail down, and totally not fun on the way back, but the place is still gorgeous to look at.

So I head back to the studio this afternoon to box tile, glaze tile, load tile, refreshed and ready to go to work.  My only problem?  Legs that are still remembering that climb!

A mini vacation

Hey kids. If I glaze another tile (190 today) I will shoot somebody. So I'm taking a couple of days off to sit under the pines in Payson with my hubby and some friends and chill. Bringing cards, books, wine and paper to draw on, of course.

I don't actually do anything with the stuff I draw up there, I just like keep in practice.

Here's a picture of the view from the cabin we stay in. 80 during the day, 60 at night.

I'm missing my first ceramics class on Saturday, but it's OK. I'll be back on Monday for the first lab.

No sweating for 4 whole days. Hooray!