two mugs

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I've been throwing pottery pretty consistently for the last six or so years (save a full year off when I had the littlest little, cause baby).  I started doing pottery back in high school in my outstanding and amazing Crafts elective taught by the outstanding and amazing and terrifying (in the BEST WAY) Ms. G.  That's a whole 'nother post though. 

I take classes at a local studio, which fires stoneware to cone 6.  Right now we're working through some reclaim clay, which doesn't really bother me (save the THREE times I've picked out plaster--what? BAD--and the one time I found a piece of packing strapping in my clay.  Annoying, but at least I found it).

So here are two of my most recent results.

mug the first

DETAIL OF THE HANDLE DWEEDLYBOB THING (AKA, ADDED BIT OF CLAY I SMOOSHED WITH MY FAVORITE CARVED BISQUE STAMP I MADE A FEW YEARS AGO)

I really like this first mug.  This glaze combo is Standard pottery glaze Chambray (first dip) with Frosted Moss (second dip).

I'm pleased with the translucence of the glaze, and how it settled in the stamped lines and pooled on the handle and the interior.  I'm also pretty pleased with the foot of the mug--I love big feet on pottery.  While I was trimming this one, I added a small ridge right by the foot with the idea that I'd glaze this one with one of the slightly runny glaze combos. The ridge acts as a bit of a glaze catch to keep it from running all the way down the foot and onto the shelf.  It mostly worked, too.  

The one thing is there are two bits of something or other on the interior of the mug, embedded in the glaze.  I suspect it's something that was in one of the glazes itself, and it's not easily reached to grind or polish off.  

mug the second.  please to note the SUPER KLASSY photo platform of my notebook, and background of the messy kitchen. 

drippy glaze is the best glaze! unless you have to clean the kiln shelves. then it's the worst ever.

I chose the bottom glaze on the second mug on purpose, but I'm still on the fence about it.  I like it in parts, and I love the combination with the second partial dip (which is a full dip on the interior).  After the first dip, I waxed the bottom a bit higher up so I could just dip full on into the second glaze, but the best parts, right by the handle, are where I kind of smudged the two glazes together a bit with a damp sponge, and where the wax wasn't a hard line.  

The real issue is that it ran right down and off the handle, and pooled on the shelf, so I had to grind/sand/diamond polishing block a chunk of glaze off the bottom of this one.  No foot, no glaze catch. 

This one is first dip (long dip) of Standard pottery glaze Snow on Brick, topped with Midnight Sky.  

I'm still awful with negotiating the shrinkage percentage of the clay--all clay shrinks as it dries, then again in the kiln, so to get an item of a specific size you often have to make it bigger than you eventually want.  I like big mugs and so these are a bit small for me. Eh, getting there.