Lidded Cylinder, Box Cylinder and 10 Throwing Cylinders

I finally have the finished glazed texture cylinder, cups, and lidded cylinder. I am so excited with how all of the cylinders turned out after the glazing.

With the cups and textured cylinders I was trying multiply glazes on each of the cylinders. I like how some of the glaze made patterns on the cups. The glaze ran down the sides and gave the cups a nice visual depth to the piece. (Is that some nice artistic talk or what?)


I am also so happy with how the lidded cylinder turned out. The clear glaze over the colors really made the images stand out on the cylinder. It is so exciting to see what happens after the firing of each piece. I was also really scared that the lid would get stuck to the body of the piece when the glaze melted. That happened to one of the girls and her lid broke off when she was trying to bang the lid and body apart.


My box cylinder came out of the firing in one piece and I was able to take the lid off, which of course I was worried about. I like how the clear glaze over the clay turned out, that was interesting.


The final projects I am waiting on to be fired are the “Plastic” form bowl, my hollow hand that was to be 3x the size of a regular hand, and my final project.


These are the 10 cylinders I threw and glazed to be graded.

Cylinder 1 & 2 Cylinder 3 & 4

Cylinder 5 & 6 Cylinder 7 & 8 Cylinder 9 & 10

Birthday Gift for Myself

For my birthday I decided to get another tattoo as a birthday gift to myself. I have had an idea for a tattoo for several months and I finally told mom what I wanted and asked her if she could sketch something up for me.

What I wanted was a bracelet around my right wrist of Forget-Me-Not flowers. In the middle of each flower I wanted the birthstones for mom, aunt Vickie, Brian, Kaitlyn and Skylar. I also wanted four smaller flowers at the end of the bracelet with both sets of grandparents birthstones in the middle of the flowers. I did not want a solid band between the flowers so mom drew a vine between each flower.

I did some research about the Tattooed Heart, even though mom and William have been there before, I still wanted to see the reviews from other people. I took my sketch in on the 7th of March and talked to Paul about my ideas. He said it shouldn’t be a problem and then asked when I would like the tattoo done. I said I wanted it on my birthday, Friday the 13th of March.
On my birthday I took my sketch in again and Paul made a copy of it and a stencil of the flowers. We had to make a change to the flower because the center of the flower is yellow and I wanted yellow around the center of each flower, but the flowers were too small for that. So we decided to make small triangles out from the birthstone to have the yellow in the flower.

I don’t think getting the tattoo was too bad. There were only two sensitive areas and the rest of the tattoo was fine. Once we got the placement of the flowers down, Paul did the outlining in black and then he took a smoke break. After the break he got out about 8 small cups for all the colors for the flowers and birthstones. It only took about 45 minutes for him to color in the flowers. I was so excited when he was done with the tattoo.

I am so glad I was able to get the tattoo and mom drew out my idea for me. We make a great team!

Here are some photos of the process. I still have to scan and post the sketch that mom made and I will post those pictures later.

Paul was prepping my arm for the tattoo

We are placing the stencils on my wrist.

Paul is starting to outline the tattoo

You can see the outline and the tattoo gun
Can see the ink and the gun on my skin
Paul is almost done with the outlining
The completed outline
Starting to work on the color
You can see Paul working on the side of my arm
Finshed tattoo

I will post new photos of the tattoo since the healing is done.

Mom's Birthday Gift

It has been awhile since we have posted anything, so sorry about that. Both mom and I have been a little busy with her starting her new job and my finishing up school for the semester. I thought I would start off with posting the birthday gift I made mom.

I know I have said over and over that I did not want to draw ever again. Well I broke down and drew a picture for mom’s birthday. I used a photograph of Grandma Mert holding mom when she was a baby. I love that photograph of them both. Grandma was a dish.

What made this easy to draw was that I gridded out my drawing paper and I gridded out the photograph. Don’t worry mom I photo-copied the picture and gridded it out on the copy.
The one thing I was worried about was the hair, mouth and teeth of the drawing because I am not good at that at all. I asked Gabby if she could help me with the finishing touches.

This time I took photographs of the different steps of the drawing process. I have a photograph of the picture I used, the outline of the drawing, when I started to shade, etc.

I did not get the drawing done before mom’s birthday. Once I am finished with the final shading I will have the drawing framed for mom. I did show the drawing to her on her birthday and mom said she loved it and it brought tears to her eyes. I hope those were tears of happiness and not tears of “OH, My God That was Terrible”.

Here are the photographs I have so far. Once I have the drawing I will post the final photograph.

Donated Yarn

Beth and I are knitting items to donate. We are making preemie hats, chemo hats, and military helmet liners. Julie, the owner of Julie's Ranch House on 350 South, purchased and donated 6 skeins of Baby Bee Sweet Delight Wrap Babybell yarn to the cause. I think I can get at least 10 preemie hats from each skein. WAY TO GO JULIE! THANK YOU! I sat in Julie's Ranch House two afternoons this week, knitting away.

Ceramics - 28th February

I worked on throwing cylinders on the wheel. I spent over three hours working on that, and mom took pictures of the process. I think I almost have the throwing process down. I now just have to work on making sure the clay is not off center and work on bringing the sides up taller. Right now the cylinders I have made are only 4-5.5 inches high and the cylinders have to be at least 6 inches tall.

Sometimes it is so frustrating making the cylinders. But at least Siggy sees that I am practicing and trying to get them made. I know mom says I am too critical about what they look like; but you know me, I am a perfectionist. I think I am close to 30 hours of practice. I have lost count of how many cylinders I have had to throw away because I ruined them while on the wheel, they were crooked, or the lip was over center.

You will be able to see the process of making the cylinders from the pictures mom took. You can see how much fun I am having getting dirty J The front of that black smock I am wearing is covered in dry clay. It is like being a kid again and playing in the mud puddle.

I do plan on taking vacation during spring break, and working in the ceramics studio in the morning. I am hoping to work in the metals studio in the afternoon. I want to try and make up some more pendants for the jewelry sale in April. Mom and I also ordered wire jewelry making books. I would like to learn how to make some of the bracelets and necklaces that are in the books. Mom wants to try the chain mail. The hope is one day to have our items completely handmade.

Ceramics Weekend - Feb 20-22

On Friday the 20^th of February I worked on my lidded cylinder. I had to finish painting the pictures, on the cylinder with slip. I had to put three coats of slip on the cylinder; once I finished, I had to put the cylinder in the back work area to be fired in the kiln. It took me three hours to paint the slip on the cylinder. Once I put one coat of slip on, I had to wait for it to dry before I could put the next layer on. My cylinder has been in the back since that night, and it still has not been fired. Mom was knitting a preemie hat. She also used the Dremmel with a burr cup to finish off the ends of ¾” lengths of sterling silver wire she has cut to make links.

On Saturday the 21^st of February, I worked on glazing my cups and textured cylinders. We have to put the glazes on, and then the cups and cylinders are fired. It took me over two hours to glaze three cups and two textured cylinders. I first had to get the bucket of glaze out and stir the glaze with a drill and use a stick to help mix up the glazes. I first had to put the glaze inside the cup and pour it out and then I had to put another color on the outside of the cup or cylinder. I had to wait for the glaze to dry, and then wipe off a ¼ inch of the glaze from the bottom so that when it is fired it won’t stick to the bottom of the kiln. I am still waiting for the cups and cylinders to be fired. Mom was still working with the burr cup on the lengths of wire, and knitting a hat.

On Sunday the 22^nd of February I worked on putting my lidded box cylinder together. I had only planned on putting the box together. Well, I ended up constructing the whole box. That took me over three hours to work on. Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures of the construction process. I do have pictures of the box cylinder before I fired it. After constructing the box, I had two and a half extra slabs left over. I kept those slabs in case my box fell apart when fired, and I had to make a new box. I wanted the slabs ready so I didn’t have to wait for the drying out of the clay to make a new box. But since the cylinder was fired on the 2^nd of March, and the box didn’t collapse, I can finally get rid of those slabs. Yeah!!!! Mom was still knitting.