Blue Bunny and Green Gator

Well, here they are. And my Stroke N Coat adventures continue. Before the blue bunny was glaze fired, he was blue with cute little red flowers with yellow centers. After being fired the yellow centers were completely absorbed into the blue never to be seen again. The red petals ran like crazy. Hmmm.

I do like how the gator turned out. His orange and blue swirls remind me a little of paisley, and there isn't much I like better than a pretty paisley pattern.

Last Tuesday night in class I just wasn't into it and spent three-quarters of the evening fiddling with several wads of clay. Nothing seemed to want to be made. Then about forty-five minutes before the end of class I started shaping a rosebud. I seem to remember it looking pretty good by the end of the night. We'll see next week.

Bandit

Please allow me to introduce you to Bandit.  Bandit kindly shares the home of my friend, Barbara. In flesh and fur, Bandit is actually more orange than his clay counterpart, as you can see, though I do like how his expression and pose turned out. I'm continuing to be surprised by the Stroke N Coat results. As I was glazing the figure I was afraid that I'd used too much orange and tried to tone it down with a little more yellow and white. As it turned out he's not quite orange enough now. I think it's just a matter of experience, tho, and with practice, I'll have a better idea of how a piece is going to turn out. Next week I should have a couple pieces that are being fired this week to share.

Just Out of the Kiln

These are the latest pieces home from clay class. There are problems with all of them, but this is how we learn. The lace plate had far too much glaze on it in spots and not enough in others, but I did get the effect I was trying for in other places, i.e. that slightly yellowed look that old lace can get. The pink bear isn't the pink I was going for, being slightly too much of an anemic pink, rather than a healthy little girl's bedroom pink. I'm thinking it's because I didn't put the Stroke N Coat on thick enough. And I managed to get the red on the inside of his mouth on the outside as well. I'm thinking of calling him "Just Because I'm Pink, Doesn't Mean I'm Not Grizzly." Sigh. Then there's the small leaf dish. This will definitely be a present for my mother. The metallic green glaze pooled on the inside bottom of the dish because I didn't wipe enough off, which makes an interesting effect, but wasn't what I was going for. And there will be no picture of the huge crack in the side that can only really be seen from the bottom. Double sigh.

I've become addicted to playing with clay. I began to type "working" rather than "playing," stopped short doing anything with clay is anything but work. I've decided to start this blog to chronicle my experiences playing in the mud.
This all started about six months ago, when I retired after thirty years as a Florida state employee. I finally had the time and energy to do some of the fun things. I started taking classes at the Dunedin Fine Arts Center (www.dfac.org). I tried drawing (too much like work) and a making art cloth class (fun, but just not 'it").
Then in the fall I started a clay class and I was hooked. The photos below are a couple of my first pieces. I do love making the little animals. The dog is "Watson," a friend's new sheltie puppy. The cat is my cat, Snow. The leaf plate was lots of fun and looks great!