Etsy Mud Team Platter Challenge

The Etsy Mud Team is hosting a Platter Challenge this week. Vote in it and you'll receive a coupon code for 20% off at dozens of etsy pottery shops.

Here's my entry in the challenge

The Ants Come Marching Flying Carpet Tray

I created a series of small trays after playing with my tile moulds and stamps - they remind me of flying carpets. Use these trays to hold snacks or appetizers....anything you'd like to display on a fancy flying carpet!

This small tray started it's life as a thin slab of porcelain clay, which I impressed with some of my handmade stamps - dogwood flowers in the center with a line of fun little ants, and finished on the edges with a triangular stamp. I then laid it over a slump mould I made, and added 2 small stamped coils of clay feet to the bottom. It measures about 5" wide X 8" long, and about 1 3/4" high. I've glazed the flowers in peach satin matte, the ants in a mottled gloss transparent blue/green and the triangles in gloss black, The tray is nicely off-center and very light. The glazes are mid-range stoneware and non-lead.

Please go and vote in the challenge - HERE!

Cornell Chorale sings And So It Goes by Billy Joel 4-24-09

Someone just posted a comment on this YouTube video that I uploaded all the way back in April, 2009. I filmed it on a little camera that had a video, so the quality isn't terrific, but it certainly is a lovely song, and well done by the Cornell Chorale. My son Harry is a bass in the Chorale and it's always a thrill to be in the audience when they sing.

Thanks to whoever posted the comment - it gave me a chance to go back and listen again!!

Frog #1....carved and really for casting!

I've posted before about this carving project and finally the first frog is done and ready to have a plaster cast made of it tomorrow. I usually have a feel for how the glaze will look on the tile just by looking at the wax, but this one has me a bit perplexed. I say it's done, but I'll leave the final judgment on it until I get a tile out of the glaze kiln.

I especially fussed over the background and the water. I want that to be really subtle, and I just can't tell how much detail will show through the glaze.

Next up is the left hand frog. Hopefully this one won't take me as long to carve...after all, there aren't any big holidays to distract me, only the usual life distractions!!

Celebrating a project completed!!

I know a few posts ago I said that the very next post would be about my new pots....well here's something that I just have to show off before I get my pots photographed.

It's a commission that has been a very long time in the works, more months than I'd like to count, actually. I was tasked to create one section of a 3 piece panel that depicts a reclining soldier. With only a copy from a page of a 1902 American Encaustic Tile Company catalogue, and the original 2 sections of the panel to work from, I had to carve the head section of the soldier 11 percent larger than the finished piece needed to be. Check out my first post about it HERE. My second post HERE.

Well, after getting the tiles out of the bisque and cut and ready to glaze, I realized that I still needed to match the glaze. That took 5 alterations of materials, but I must say, I'm very pleased with the results.

Ready for it?

The full panel with my recreation of the head section.

I'm very pleased! Now, onto my next carving commission....3 singing frogs!

An Etsy Treasury.

Thanks, Luna, I love this collection!!

'A Little Bird Told Me.....' by LunaTerra

... that these items are amazing!!This is an Etsy Success team treasury. These items were all chosen from fellow team members' shops. Enjoy!

Little Birds on Branche... nikku $18.00	Popcorn - queen anne ... bomobob $30.00
Twin Buckle Lace Belt C... AudraJean $47.00	Feather Your Nest Laven... bstudio $15.00
Sweet Orange Ylang Ylan... ettaandbillie $10.95	Beaded Hoop Earrings, V... BohemiaJewelle... $42.00
Frog Fiddling - Small H... lesperancetile $10.00	Set of 3 Assorted Owl N... BeeDazzlesGift... $
Vintage Luggage Blue Sa... Flyingace $42.00	Seagreen - wire wrapped... MGMart $15.00
fashion doodle 5x7 prin... TinfenaStudio $6.00	Ponytail Felted Sand Fl... Baymut $23.00
handmade blue porcelain... monalina $29.50	Fragment: Dawn 88editions $125.00
Ceramic owl With her ow... claylicious $38.00	VALENTINE Sale 30 Beaut... KAPARA $2.38

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

A few new pieces.

I've been having an amazing season of creative play in my studio, working out ideas that have been brewing inside for a while. I can never figure out exactly why it takes so long from the idea to the finished piece, but when they're ready to happen, they do.
Using the hand-carved tile moulds that I've made over the years, I've impressed clay slabs with different parts of the designs from my inventory of 100's of patterns. Then I take my smaller hand made stamps and add details and diversions to the image.

These pieces actually made their first appearance in my "Flying Carpet Trays" almost 2 years ago now (!), and although I really liked the trays, it never felt as though that's the form I wanted them to take.
I usually work with a very fussy porcelain body and, sorry to say, I lost more than 1/2 of the pieces I first made. But I'm so happy with the final product that there are more on the way.

These initial 3 pieces were entered into a show called "10x10 = $100" at the Mimosa Gallery in downtown Saratoga Springs. I'm thrilled to say that they all sold on opening night!!

Actually, these pieces never got the finishing touch on them, which are laser decals that I print from my new laser printer. The base glaze I used didn't hold the decals and they disappeared completely. Not a problem, as I have MANY glaze bases to use in my shop.

I've started throwing pots again and my next post will show the results of some small bowls, with decals intact!!