Pots!!

Yes, call me a slacker since I have not posted anything for a bit.  I would have much rather been lazy on the couch with my netbook earlier this week instead of gingerly sitting at my home computer 'working at home' on irritating project work plans.  And I do mean gingerly sitting.  Due to a silly (read 'annoying') Charlie-horse in my hip, I have been burdened with an aggravated nerve which the doctor has deemed is most likely pinched.  Bleh.  After some moderately good drugs (thought the muscle relaxer was supposed to make me really drowsy?), I finally made it to work today and hope to be back to normal by the end of this weekend.

However, I still managed to ride my horse this past weekend and spend the weekend pseudo-camping in WV.  We'll ignore my waking up at night and worthlessly laying around on Sunday, though.  I've made the mental note to myself that limiting my activity when in pain is most likely the better alternative than not.

But before I post pictures from last weekend, I wanted to share pictures of my pots!

Here are three of my first four pots after just over 9 years of not working with any clay.  They have been fired once and are currently in the bisque stage - they will not be formally finished, but will serve as great 'test' pieces for glazing.

They're not beautiful (nor horrendous!), but they are finished and I am kinda proud of them.

Next class was goblets.  My first ever goblets!  At the leather-hard stage (they have dried a bit, but have not yet been fired - they will go through two firings in the kiln before they are finished - if I decide to).  Both of these are stems - we were learning various ways to make goblets.

And here is a bowl (far right).  I had a little oopsie with the rim - the shelf I had to store my pieces on was a bit on the cramped side, and during the process of getting them covered with plastic and arranged to fit, I knocked the wet rim and warped it.

However, I was able to make it look a little better before it got fired.  These are the same stems and bowl (the second bowl I did not get a picture of before it was joined to the stem) after they have air dried completely (called green-ware).  They will turn a light red color after being fired once.

And then we made something called agate-ware.  This is where you take multiple colors of clay and layer them up, creating a multi-colored effect.  You then throw the pots and the different colors swirl around in an almost marbleized effect.  It's really cool and the effects are awesome.  The colors of all the pieces I've posted pictures of are not true to the final colors.  The light tan (all my first pieces) will be a light brown with speckles when finished.  In the agate-ware, the dark red-brown is actually black, the ultra white is a porcelain-like refractory clay which will be white and bounce light around, there is also some gray, brown, and the speckled tan clays in the mix.  Here are the three pieces I made with the clay I mixed myself.

And my fourth piece with some clay someone else mixed.  I am totally in love with this last pot and really hope it doesn't blow up in the kiln!  The contrast will be fantastic between the black (currently red) and white (white) and tan (gray) clays.  The little circle effects were totally not my doing, but were a fantastic surprise when I saw them.

Look at the inside!

This week we cleaned up the edges, scraped some more to reveal more color patterns, and I put a handle on one of the pots.  Next week we shall buff the dried pots and send them off for their first firings.  

Fingers crossed that nothing blows up!