pictures..

 on a street corner by the library...

 proof

my pinched tea bowls project #3

hmmmm concentration....

I have been thinking of maybe expanding my concentration to drinking vessels so I can include mugs... and some of my designs for tea bowls I would consider to be more like cups... Anyway I have my three projects done plus  a little. I made some mugs Monday night and they are taking ages to dry out in the shed. I will probably trim them tomorrow afternoon. They are going to be Christmas gifts for the family. Tomorrow I need to make a glaze and scrub the 10 or 15 tea bowls in my cabinet and get them on the cart to be fired. I'm gonna take a picture of all of them and post it tomorrow-ish...

Snow day=bone dry un-trimmed set of teabowls

Luckily I still had a brand new bag of clay sitting out in the shed left over from summer, so over the break I threw a bunch of new ones of this style. 

I also started another set of these:

They are made with Cannon Beach which I've never thrown with before, never really thrown with clay with sand in it before but I liked throwing with it.

More Teabowls.(Now that's a shocker)

This week I've been making teabowls of a swirl shape(sorta I don't know how to explain it properly I'll get a picture up here of them soon).
Below are all John Reitz pieces(I printed pictures of them for my concentration research but the black and white does not do them justice). I'm loving these teabowls.Once I finish the set/style I'm making now I'm going to move onto a style like this with the subtle indents and markings and organic rims and vessels in general. The last picture is a vase by him and I really like the texture on the outside. I've been wanting to experiment with slip and that is the direction I want to take my teabowls in.

Update

Wood firing starts tomorrow!! I have 8ish teabowls in there as well as some other things but I'm really hoping the teabowls turn out well because I might use a few in my concentration.
Over winter break, once my brother comes home, I'm going to convince him to let me fire up the gas kiln. I want to try to get two reduction firings in it done over winter break, one at the beginning and one at the end. I need to do a little more research on glazes and the firing itself between now and then as well as throw a lot! My hope is that out of this I will get a set(or multiple ones) of teabowls for my concentration. The kiln is smallish but if anyone wants a couple pots fired there should be plenty of room.
results from a gas reduction firing:

CONCENTRATION

So I'm 99% sure that I want to do thrown and altered tea-bowls and such for my concentration. I looked through the 500 cups books today(again) and came up with a bunch of ideas to fit into my concentration. I also kind of wanted to do platters or rustic thrown vessels or bulbous forms forms concentration but I don't know that I would want to do a whole concentration on it so tea-bowls it is...maybe.
some cool altered teabowls I found:

Blog Update

This week I finished up my family project. I really like the shapes of my forms but they just seem a little plain.... I was thinking about experimenting with a little slip but I really like the smoothness of them. I probably am contradicting myself. I'm going to woodfire them, that I know for sure. On the topic of the woodfire I am planning on throwing a bunch tomorrow afternoon and this weekend then firing the stuff next week in preparation for the woodfire. I want to make a couple of sets of teabowls.

< woodfire from last year. It's a really cool experience and you should definitely go.