I have a cunning plan...

So I was off work last week, well Tuesday through Friday, and was able to spend a lot more time in the studio.  That’s why there were so many blog posts so quickly, but now I’m back at work and back to spending only about an hour or so a night in the studio.  So these posts will also slow down, just because I won’t be able to do as much.  Which is okay I’ll just have to make the time spent there count a little more, try to plan what I’m going to do in advance so I don’t spend my hour trying to figure out what to throw or build.  That’s what happened tonight, I went out there without a plan and nothing I tried to throw worked out.  Everything was off center, too heavy, or just collapsed under the guidance of hands that didn’t quite know what they wanted to do.  So now I’m going to spend a little time each day figuring out what I want to do in the studio that night, and what I want to accomplish for the week.  So I’m off to make some kind of plan for tomorrow night so I don’t repeat what happened tonight. Thanks for visiting.

Standing on their own.

Today I was working on some candle stand, or they could be used as tiny cake stands.  I used about 2 pounds of porcelain, and threw them upside down.  I threw them upside down for two reasons: first I wanted to make sure the top was going to be really flat, and second I needed to make two walls.  The outer wall hangs down off of the top and gives the stand a nice surface for future designs.  The inner wall acts as the stand or support and gives it some lift off of the table.  These are about 3 inches wide at the top.  I will also make some larger ones for actual cake stand that will fit something larger than a cupcake, but these will work for candles.  Thanks for visiting. 

A Table to Work On

Let’s play a little catch up, I made this table a month or two ago. 

                After looking at my studio I decided I needed more table space dedicated to pottery.  The other table I have is used for everything else so it gets bits of dirt and sawdust all over it, not that good for pottery.  So I set out to build a large table.  I decided to stick with the dimensions of a standard piece of plywood (3/4 inch in this case), which is 8 foot by 4 foot, and I went with 3 feet tall.  I also wanted a lower level that I could use to store clay off of the floor.  I used 4 by 4 treated posts for the legs so that if they ever got wet it wouldn’t matter that much.  I built the frame out of two by fours; both the top and the lower shelf have supports running the four foot length to give it a little more support.  Once it was all assembled I covered the top of it with canvas to give me a nice work area.  It took me the better part of a Saturday afternoon but I was able to get it finished, and now it’s in full use and working out quite nicely.

An update and an inquiry.

Ewan has become an outside baby since the last time I posted here.  So here is the obligatory baby picture.

And now for something completely different...  I’m thinking of starting a Kickstarter to buy a kiln, and I just wanted to run a few things past my “vast” audience.  I’ve been trying to think of gifts/incentives to give out for various levels of giving.  So far I have:

5- Hand written thank you card.

10-spoon rest/tea bag holder

20- Japanese style tea bowl (chawan).

40- Two Japanese tea bowls (chawans)

50- Four large(ish) matching tumblers or tea bowls

100-four Japanese style tea bowls (chawans), honey/sugar container, and creamer container.

150-3 hour lesson where I come to you to teach hand building or throwing, or you can come to the studio.  Lessons can be for any age.

If you have any ideas for other or better incentives please let me know, I’m completely open to suggestions.  I seem to be moving fairly slowly on this front, but I would like to have a kiln set up within the year.  I think the goal for this project would be around 7,000.  I’m looking at this kiln, the Olympic DD14 Down Draft.  It’s the largest kiln I can get without needing to use a forklift.  It will cost around 7,000 after I add the shelving kit and get a larger gas meter.  Thanks for reading.

Books and Brushes

The bookshelf is finished.  Here are a few photos from the last couple of steps.

 Here was the last shelf being pegged and glued together.  You can see the pegs that I used to secure it down the side.

 Here is a better picture of the pegs.  I’m getting ready to cut them off and sand the whole thing down one last time (I sanded everything before I put it together).

 And here a picture of the same corner after I sanded the pegs down.

Now the other project I was working on was making my own sketch book.  Here are a few photos from that.

Here is the fabric and the cardboard that I used for the spine, front, and back.  The fabric is actually left over from when Keturah made me some hakama pants.

 This is where I folded the sides of the fabric over the edge of the cardboard and was preparing to glue the pages onto the cover.  I don’t have a picture of the pages being glued on because it took both hands (and a chin) to keep it together.

Here it is all clamped down.  I used parchment paper in between the cover pages to keep them from being glued together, and two more sheets to keep the wood from being glued to the front and back of the book.  After about a day of letting it dry while being clamped together I took it apart to see how I did.  And it turned out pretty well for the first book I ever made; the only downside was that it didn’t open all the way.  You see I had glued the spine to the cover, which makes it very difficult to open without ripping the cover pages out of the cover, which I did.  So I started over with the other set of pages I made, went through the whole process again.  I didn’t glue the spine down, and it turned out much better as you can see, it opens and everything!

After “succeeding” with my second book, I went ahead and made the first one again and now I have two sketch books   that are half way decent.  I plan to try to fill one a month for the next couple of months with sketches, notes, and general ramblings about pottery.  At which point I will make a few more   sketch books and try to fill those ones with more ideas.  The idea being that by being productive and creative, I will become more productive e and creative, which just might lead to some kind of real art work being produced out of this new studio space.

Speaking of studio space I was trying to get it a little more organized this week.  I finished unpacking the last of the boxes out there and set up the drawing table/desk.  I’m going to try and sketch and doodle and ponder out there as much as I can just to start a trend of being in the studio and out of the house.  Here’s the drawing table; it’s more organized than this now that I’ve worked on it a little more since I took this photo but you get the idea.

Also, as I was going through all the boxes I found some brushes that I made while I was in graduate school.  I don’t think I’ve used very many of them and now I think I’m only going to get a few of them.  So as a treat for those of you who suffered this far into my ramblings I will gladly give them to you!  Just send me a message either here or on facebook and we will make arrangements to get you a brush or two.  I think I will have about 10 or 11 to give away so let me know quickly.  Also, I want to make some more brushes but would like to use black bamboo so if any knows where I can get some about the diameter of a thumb or bigger please let me know.  Thanks for sticking with me this far!  See all of you next week.